There is a worldwide need for movement towards alternatives to judicial decision-making for legal disputes. In India, the most dreadful problems faced by the judiciary is the pendency of cases. Thus, with an aim to address the pendency of cases and bearing on mind the maxim “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied” the Indian legislators have introduced several legal mechanisms accelerating the criminal procedure. The most important among them are the guilty plea and sentence bargaining which came into force in 2006 by the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2005.
This article provides thorough research about the concept of sentence bargaining, types of sentence bargaining, and its impact on the criminal justice system with judicial pronouncements. The objective of this work is to analyze the Indian model of sentence bargaining and make suggestions that may be conducive for making it much more acceptable and effective in the Criminal Justice System of the country.
Keywords: Bargaining, Judiciary, Criminal System