Concept of Plea-Bargaining

The basic objective of the legal system is to maintain the peace and order in the society and to fulfill the idea of justice as mentioned in the Preamble of our Indian Constitution. In the case of the violation of the rights of the person. Offences can be of civil as well as criminal nature. In the civil cases the dispute can be settled by various modes by following the outside the settlement procedure. In criminal cases also there are cases which are minor and are of compoundable nature. But because of the trial processes these cases remain pending in the courts thereby leading to the huge pendency of the cases. The accused in such types of cases are sometimes the first time offenders and due to the trial process they are being kept with the hardened criminals which can affect them. So, in order to reduce the pendency of such cases, the concept of Plea-Bargaining has been introduced. It is a process which tries to reduce the burden of the courts. It is method of pre-trial/negotiation between the accused and the victim. This paper has tried to laid the emphasis upon the use of plea-bargaining as one of the modes of Alternative Dispute Resolution for serving the two purposes i.e. one for disposing off the criminal cases of petty nature and secondly as a ray of hope for under trials