Delhi Uber rape case uncovers a broken system of background checks in India

When the Delhi rape of December 6 was first reported I had my own misgivings whether the offender was in fact a career criminal. The latest information released by Delhi Police confirms this diabolic character had in fact a dubious record. A couple of years ago he had committed a similar crime. He was charge sheeted for rape but was acquitted by the trial court. A few issues flow naturally from this revelation. Uber, for whom he operated the taxi hired by the traumatized executive who got into the car late in the night, had not done a background check for him. My question is: Would a background check have unearthed the fact that the driver had a criminal background? Police record system in this country is still imperfect. This is a shame for a nation which claims it is the most advanced IT place. This is particularly because the offender had been acquitted by the court. Acquittals are not an equivalent for innocence. But the whole gravity of an offence is diluted once a court gives the benefit of the doubt to an arraigned person. There is the problem of many offenders having several aliases which makes it difficult for records to capture every criminal. [caption id=“attachment_1838263” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  Reuters[/caption] I would like to know whether the Delhi rapist had only one or several names. It is possible that in this case the fact of his earlier crime was extracted him after severe interrogation that included third degree method. There are number agencies in the country which do checks for many IT firms doing large-scale recruitment. Some are extremely professional. The others are not. The problem is they depend on sub-contractors who are fly-by-night operators. Court records are shabby and incomplete, especially at the trial court level. These are the problems of background checks in India. Many State Police organizations do not entertain requests from private companies for such checks. The some who are responsive prescribe a phenomenal fee that many private industries or other outfits cannot afford. Some police staff peddle information after bogusly claiming they had accessed records before tendering the information sought by a private body. This is shameful but true. Things are no doubt improving. But too slowly for our comfort. The second most important aspect of the whole episode is the ease with which an offender gets away with his crime once he is taken to the court. The process is porous, debilitated by police incompetence and corruption. It is also affected by corruption in the lower judiciary and the defence lawyer’s ability to buy up prosecution witnesses. This is the tragedy of the Indian scenario. The self-proclaimed reformers make a lot of noise without achieving much. The Uber top brass will have to answer a number of questions. If they had made false claims that their operators had been vetted they need to be disciplined. What about the victim herself? Was she smug because of the perceived security of Uber operations? Even so, why did she not have the prudence not to to travel in a public vehicle so late, that too in Delhi, notorious for offences against women, all by herself. Did she throw caution to the wind? I know women’s organizations will be upset with me for raising this question. How else does one contend with this unfortunate episode? The writer is a former CBI director.