16. “We cannot close our eyes to the reality that less than twenty per cent of prosecutions are successful; the rest are futile largely because of inept, shoddy or substandard investigation and prosecution. Even in cases where the prosecution succeeds in proving the guilt of the accused, punishment is emasculated by convicts not because of their succeeding in having their conviction overturned and reversed by the appellate court, but by going underground and disappearing from society after receiving reprieve from incarceration from the appellate court. We are convinced that the interests of society at large are being repeatedly sacrificed for the exaggerated, if not misplaced concern for what is fashionably termed as “human rights” of convicts. Recent judgments of the Court contain a perceptible dilution of legal principles such as the right of silence of the accused. The Supreme Court has, in several cases, departed from this rule in enunciating, inter alia, that the accused are duty-bound to give a valid explanation of facts within their specific and personal knowledge in order to dispel doubts on their complicity. Even half a century ago this would have been a jural anathema. Given the woeful success rate of the prosecution, if even the relatively niggard number of convicts are permitted
