When does truth become the dominant strategy in an Indian courtroom?

Set the inputs on the left; the verdict and proofs on the right recompute at once. The other pages, in the side panel, hold the method note, the witness and conspiracy games, the docket dynamics, robustness tests and every assumption with its source.

Scenarios

Test

Dials

Each dial is compared with today's law, one at a time. The line under a dial says what its current setting does: helps truth win (more pleas, a shorter wait, fewer prison beds), hurts it, or no difference now because another setting binds. Dials marked not a lever describe the case or the population.

Gear 1 · Pricing the pleaGuidelines · Sch. A, B

Representative offence

Quintiles partition the statutory range (Rule 8). Life imprisonment deemed 20 years per the Form I-A note to Rule 8(3).

Net aggravating / mitigating adjustment (Rules 5–7)

Base Score 5; total adjustment ordinarily within ±4 points (Rule 7(3)).

Stage at which the plea is entered

Items B1 + R2: a deterministic Guideline baseline existsOff = BNSS s.293 as enacted: the accused cannot compute S₀ in advance. Item A3: stage-graded statutory ceilingPlea sentence may not exceed the stated fraction of the statutory maximum.

Rule 13(2) max reduction (% of sentence): S1 S2 S3

Item A3 ceiling (% of maximum): S1 S2

Item B3: no plea discount above Final Score 8 Item B2: judicially recorded falsehood is an aggravatorApplies only to a court-found falsehood, never to a plea of not guilty. Points: Item A4: delete the s.289 seven-year ceiling

Item A5: share of accused who receive and understand the plea notice

Item A1: share of attempted pleas lost to complainant hold-out

Gear 2 · Pricing the lieSatyug · Sch. E, F

Items F1–F6 enacted15-day Safe-Harbour notice, s.215 cognizance opened, s.383 summary trial, consecutive sentencing. Governs the witness market and the s.383 inquiry load.

Expected years to disposal of a contested trial (T)

Exogenous here; the Docket page makes it endogenous to the queue.

Conviction probability p_G: derived from the complainant and witnesses set by hand

Evidence quality if the witnesses are present (p_base)

Effective p_G at the current wait is derived on the Complainant page from who is still there when the trial happens.

Conviction probability set by hand (p_G, used only in manual mode)

Wrongful-conviction probability of an innocent accused (p_I)

Lowered by Items V3 (exculpatory disclosure), R1 (e-Sakshya hash) and F10 (FIR truth declaration).

Annual discount factor on future punishment (δ)

Cost of contesting a trial (c_L, years-equivalent)

Item E2: s.183 recording is substantive evidence if the witness turns hostileControls how much a hostile witness lowers p_G.

Perjury conviction probability for a witness who persists after the 15-day notice (q_W)

Consecutive perjury sentence for a witness (F, years)

Up to 3 years by s.383 summary trial (Item F4); 7 for repeat perjury (Satyug booklet).

Threat the accused can make against a witness (years-equivalent harm)

Items V4 + E4 + D6: witness protection on coercion shown in camera Advanced: treat the accused's own false testimony as perjuryOff by default. The first ask handles the accused's falsehood through sentencing (Item B2), not a new offence. Switch on only to model the booklet's stronger variant (q F yrs).

Gear 3 · Custody, shields, populationItems V1–V5

Share of accused who are factually guilty, under today's law

Items F2 + F10: a false complaint can be prosecuted by the person it harmsRemoving the s.215 BNSS bar makes the false-charge offence (BNS s.248, formerly IPC s.211) usable. False and inflated complaints stop being filed, so the accused who remain are more often guilty. Needs Items F1 to F6.

False complaints deterred once they can be prosecuted

Share of today's false or inflated complaints that are never filed once the person falsely accused can prosecute them.

Innocent accused who face a false complaint

Of today's innocent accused, the share charged on a deliberately false or inflated complaint. The rest are wrongly identified or wrongly charged; prosecuting false complaints does not reach them.

Share of accused in judicial custody (undertrials)

About 4.3 lakh undertrials against roughly 3.5 crore pending criminal cases in the district courts: of the order of 1% of accused (cases are not accused, so this is an order of magnitude), but the most exposed 1%.

Custody already served by an undertrial (years)

Sunk cost. What drives coercion is the custody still ahead: min(T, s.479 threshold − served).

s.479 BNSS release threshold: one-third of maximum (first offender) one-half

First-time offenderDrives the s.293 first-offender provisos (one-sixth of the maximum, one-fourth of the minimum) and the s.479 one-third threshold; Item V5 also assumes a first offence. Item V1: Undertrial Custody-Equivalence ShieldWhere custody served reaches one-third of the indicative sentence, the accused is released on personal bond before any plea is recorded. Below that threshold a custody plea is still possible, so the coerced-plea count can be above zero even with V1 on; what removes it is a shorter wait. Item V5: stigma-free dispositionStage 1, first offence, maximum up to 3 years or s.138: conviction stigma falls to zero.

Lifelong stigma of a conviction record (K, years-equivalent)

Gear 6 · The complainantItems A1, E1–E2, E4

What a conviction is worth to the complainant (V, years-equivalent)

Vindication, safety, recovery of what was lost. Higher for grave offences and larger sums.

Compensation on conviction or plea (Item A1)

Restitution the victim receives without having to agree to the sentence. Zero today.

Cost of staying in the case per year (c_A)

Hearings, travel, wages lost, pressure from the accused, each year the case stays pending.

Private compromise on offer

What the complainant gets by compounding or withdrawing now: a payment, peace, or an end to pressure.

Cases provable from the record once the witness has gone (with Item E2)

With E1–E2 the recorded statement remains evidence; without them about one case in ten survives on documents alone.

Present witnesses turned when a bribe or threat works

FIRs that reach a charge-sheet

Police closure, final reports and untraced cases leave the funnel before any court sees them.

Gear 7 · Appeals and prisonss.297, s.430 BNSS

Share of trial convictions appealed

A plea judgment cannot be appealed (s.297 BNSS); a contested conviction usually is.

Years an appeal takes

Share of appeals that succeed

Acquittal or a reduction that removes the sentence. Innocent appellants are assumed to succeed 1.5 times as often.

Share of sentences suspended pending appeal

s.430 BNSS: with the sentence suspended, punishment starts only after the appeal, so it is discounted over the appeal years too.

Short sentences served non-custodially (probation, community service, fine)

Applies to sentences up to (Probation of Offenders Act 1958; community service under BNS s.4(f)).

Non-custodial presumption for first offenders, by band

A first offender whose case sits in a covered band serves a plea sentence as probation, community service or fine, and the record carries of the stigma. Changes both the prison page and the plea calculus.

Share of a sentence actually served (remission)

Rs per inmate-year Rs per judicial hour

Gear 4 · Conspiracy ladderSch. C, D

Credit to the first cooperator (c₁, share of sentence forgiven)

Credit to the second (c₂)

Credit to later cooperators (c₃)

Conviction probability if all stay silent

Conviction probability of a hold-out once a co-accused testifies

Item D4: repeal mandatory approver detention (s.343(4)) Item R3: kingpin barred from top-tier immunity

Gear 5 · Docket dynamicsItems F1, R5 · Part IX

Trial capacity as a share of annual inflow (case clearance rate today)

0.89 is the district-court clearance rate in the Economic Survey 2018–19; below 1.0 the backlog grows on its own.

Years a case entering today waits for trial (T₀, legacy queue)

Two-track docket: fresh filings heard in a separate listShare of trial capacity reserved for the fresh-case list: Plea offer extended to pending (legacy) cases

Judicial hours per contested trial

Judicial hours per plea disposal

Judicial hours per s.383 summary inquiry

Share of contested cases with a flagged falsehood (α)

Items F1 + V2: vernacular 15-day Safe-Harbour noticeShare of flagged contradictions withdrawn within the window: Item R5: 5% docket circuit-breaker

Proof 1 · Incentive compatibility for the guilty (IC_G)

Effective prison-equivalent years for the representative accused in each of four situations. Pleading is immediate; contesting is discounted by δ^T, weighted by the conviction probability, and carries the trial cost and any custody still ahead. The guilty accused's recorded falsehood adds Item B2 points; a plea of not guilty adds nothing.

Proof 2 · Individual rationality for the innocent (IR_I) and anti-extortion audit

An innocent person must never be better off pleading. The test is run on the innocent accused on bail and in custody, with heterogeneity, so the figure reported is the share of innocent undertrials who would plead.

Break-even

Holding everything else fixed, where does the representative guilty accused on bail switch from contesting to pleading?

Proof 1 · Incentive compatibility for the guilty (ICG)

Proof 2 · Individual rationality for the innocent (IRI) and anti-extortion audit

Break-even

Proof 1 · Incentive compatibility for the guilty (IC_G)

Proof 2 · Individual rationality for the innocent (IR_I) and anti-extortion audit