New Delhi: As many 3,998 cases under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act were pending investigation by the end of 2021, the Ministry of Home Affairs has said in the parliament.By the end of 2021, as many as 2,800 cases were awaiting trial, the ministry said in response to an unstarred question asked by two Congress MPs – from Tamil Nadu, Vishnu Prasad M.K, and from Kerala, T. N. Prathapan.The MPs sought to know the state-wise breakdown of the total number of people arrested under the UAPA in the last three years, the total number of people convicted under the UAPA in each state during the last three years, the number of people arrested under UAPA in each state, age-wise and religion-wise; and whether the government has any mechanism to speed-up the trials andinvestigation around UAPA.They also sought to know the average duration of a UAPA case with its investigation, trial and conviction, the number of people who were released after not proving the charges against them during the last ten years, state and age-wise; and whether the government has any compensation mechanism if anybody is framed falsely.Junior home minister Nityanand Rai responded that religion-wise “data is not maintained separately.” Rai said that that cases under UAPA “are mainly investigated by state police.”“The central agencies have been organising capacity building program for State Police Forces on various aspects of investigation of terror related cases,” he added.Rai said in his response that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) also investigates “some of the UAPA cases which are assigned to it” and that 49 NIA special courts have been setup across the country for the speedy trial of “terror related cases.”In 2021, 1,621 people were arrested under the UAPA. Sixty two people were convicted. It is not clear from the data when exactly those convicted were arrested.In 2020, 1,321 people were arrested under the UAPA. Five of those arrested were juveniles. Eighty people were convicted.In 2019, 1,948 people were arrested against UAPA charges, six of them juveniles. Four of these six juveniles are between 12 and 16 years of age. Two are between 16 and 18 years. Thirty four people were convicted of UAPA offences that year.As many 3,998 UAPA cases were pending investigation across all states and Union Territories at the end of 2021, the government said, citing NCRB data. In 2019, the number was 3,993 and in 2020, it was 4,101.At the end of 2021, as many as 2,041 cases were pending investigation for more than three years. Manipur had the most number of UAPA investigations pending, at 2,178, by 2021. Jammu and Kashmir had 830.Notably, Jammu and Kashmir was considered a state in 2019 and its data is merged with Ladakh for that year.As many as 2,244 UAPA cases were pending trial across all states and UTs in 2019. In 2020, that number rose to 2,500 and by 2021, it was 2,800.As many as 172 cases had not gone into trial for a decade or more, in 2021.The most number of UAPA cases pending trial were in Assam – 1,227. Among UTs, it was Jammu and Kashmir – 542.The government also said in its response that the data “regarding duration of investigation etc. is not maintained by the NCRB” and that “the conviction is the outcome of an elaborate judicial process and it depends on various factors, such as, duration of trial, appraisal of evidence, examination of witness, etc.”It also claimed that “there are adequate constitutional, institutional and statute safeguards, including inbuilt safeguards in the UAPA itself, to prevent misuse of the law.”
