Commitment to constitutional safeguards led to incorporating the principle of ‘presumed innocent until proven guilty’ into criminal law.
Representational image. (iStock)
The principle of reverse burden of proof and presumed guilty until proven innocent today extends to many offences. This diminishes the exceptional nature of the rule. It will ensure a dangerous trend of a sudden increase in conviction rates by putting an unreasonable burden on the accused to prove himself innocent against the might of the state and the prosecution.