Low Conviction Rates of ED and CBI Raise Credibility Concerns
A representative image of low conviction rate in cases of ED and CBI in India!! (Image TRH)
The ED and CBI seem to mirror each other in their failures, creating immediate political and media impact but rarely seeing a trial through to completion
By P SESH KUMAR
NEW DELHI, August 10, 2025 — On paper, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) look like two very different enforcement animals. The ED, armed with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), has built a reputation for dramatic raids, asset attachments, and eye-popping recovery claims—₹23,000 crore allegedly returned to victims—but Parliament’s data tells a more sobering story: only eight convictions from 5,892 cases over the past decade, a microscopic 0.1 per cent if measured against all registered cases.
The CBI, by contrast, boasts conviction rates of 65–75 per cent in Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) cases, seemingly a prosecutorial powerhouse. Yet dig deeper and the sheen fades—most of these “wins” appear to be low-level trap cases, while in complex, high-profile scandals like the 2G spectrum allocation, coal block allocations, Commonwealth Games contracts, and the Delhi liquor policy probe, the agency has repeatedly failed to secure convictions.
Both agencies suffer from the same underlying credibility deficit: their most publicised cases too often collapse in court, leaving the statistics to tell a misleadingly flattering story.
ED’s Low-Completion Syndrome
The ED’s numbers are startling in their imbalance. Between January 2015 and June 2025, it registered 5,892 cases under PMLA, filed prosecution complaints in 1,398, but secured convictions in only eight—fifteen individuals in all. The conviction rate, if measured against total cases registered, is just 0.1 per cent.
Defenders of the agency claim a 90% conviction rate in cases that actually reach judgement, but that is a statistical sleight of hand: the real problem is that almost no cases ever make it to judgment. PMLA’s architecture front-loads coercive powers—search, seizure, arrest, and sweeping attachment—while trial completion lags for years.
The bottleneck is compounded by PMLA’s dependence on predicate offences, the snail’s pace of special courts, and the political theatre that surrounds high-profile ED raids.
CBI’s Conviction Mirage
By contrast, CBI points to its PCA conviction rate—regularly over 65 per cent—as proof of prosecutorial effectiveness. But this high batting average comes from a very different game.
The bulk of convictions would appear to be trap cases against petty officials caught accepting small bribes with marked notes and witnesses in place. These are procedurally simple, hard to contest, and quick to prosecute. They pad the stats but do little to demonstrate the agency’s capacity to dismantle systemic corruption.
Conviction Rates: PMLA vs CBI (PCA Cases)
| Metric (latest available) | PMLA (ED) | PCA Cases (CBI) |
| Total cases registered / investigated | 5,892 (2015–2025) | 453 (2022) |
| Cases reaching judgment | ~8 | 281 |
| Convictions secured | 8 | 191 |
| Conviction rate (all registered cases) | 0.1% | 42.1% |
| Conviction rate (completed trials only) | ~90% (of 8) | 68% |
| Average trial completion time | Often >7 years | 3–5 years |
Where CBI Stumbles in the Big League
When it comes to India’s marquee corruption scandals, CBI’s record is far from stellar. The 2G spectrum prosecutions—once billed as the “mother of all scams”—ended (for the time being) in a 2017 courtroom rout, with the special court acquitting all accused and scolding the agency for failing to prove conspiracy or loss.
The coal block allocation saga delivered a handful of convictions but saw many high-value allocations collapse for want of evidence. The cases appear to go on forever. The Commonwealth Games probes, politically explosive in 2010, fizzled out in court.
More recently, the Delhi liquor policy investigation has generated headlines and arrests but no clinching trial-stage proof. In each case, the failures were depressingly similar: charge-sheets filed before evidence was airtight, over-reliance on statements without documentary corroboration, and an inability to stitch together complex financial trails that could survive cross-examination.
The NCRB Perspective: PMLA vs Other Serious Crimes
NCRB data shows that India’s courts can convict in hard cases when they reach trial. Murder prosecutions see conviction rates over 40%, rape cases hover near 28%—both far higher than PMLA’s 0.1% when measured against total cases registered, because thousands of such cases actually conclude each year.
| Offence / Agency | Cases Registered (Year/Period) | Cases Completing Trial | Convictions Secured | Conviction Rate (Completed Trials) |
| PMLA (ED) | 5,892 (2015–2025) | ~8 | 8 | ~90% |
| Murder (IPC Sec. 302) | 29,272 (2022) | 8,510 | 3,640 | 42.8% |
| Rape (IPC Sec. 376) | 31,516 (2022) | 8,715 | 2,423 | 27.8% |
| CBI – PCA cases | 453 (2022) | 281 | 191 | 68% |
Different Flaws, Same Credibility Gap
ED’s flaw is quantity without completion—flooding the docket with cases, many politically charged, but seeing almost none through to verdict. CBI’s flaw is quality without reach—scoring heavily in minor cases but failing to secure convictions in the big ones that shape public trust in governance. For both, headline figures disguise the deeper truth: neither agency’s performance in the most important, politically sensitive, high-value cases is anywhere near what their statistics imply.
Course Correction for High Convictions
The ED and CBI appear to be mirror images in their failings. The ED uses PMLA’s sweeping pre-trial powers to create immediate political and media impact but rarely sees a trial to its end. The CBI racks up easy wins in low-stakes trap cases while letting marquee corruption trials implode.
Both need the same medicine: watertight evidence collection, realistic case selection, and a focus on trial readiness over political timing. Only when ED can translate raids into verdicts and CBI can convert high-profile charges into convictions will their conviction rates mean what they appear to mean—and only then will the public’s cynicism give way to trust.
(This is an opinion piece, and views expressed are those of the author only)
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