Prisoners who are facing trial in any court and during such trial are kept in judicial custody. NCRB data under trials increased to 69% in 2019 from 67% in 2015, while the capacity of jails increased by 1.7%.
In Kartar Singh case 1994 SC held right to speedy trial as a part of fundamental right to life and liberty.
Reasons for current state of undertrials
- Delayed investigation and longer incarceration due to poor quality of investigation and lack of adequately trained staff
- Unnecessary arrests as per LCI 268th report 60% arrests are not required accounting 42% of jail expenditure
- Inconsistency in bail system due to exorbitantly high bail amount
- Poor implementation of laws: mismatch between legal position and actual state of affairs
- Poverty and illiteracy as majority under trials 28.6% are poor or illiterate or dropped out of school 41%
- Poor legal aid and representation low access to free legal aid
Initiatives by government
- Fast Track Courts to reduce judicial burden and ensure speedy justice
- E courts to streamline judicial procedure specially during covid 19
- Fast and Secure Transmission if electronic records (FASTER) scheme for courts to quickly transmit bail order etc
- NALSA web application for undertrials for free legal aid
- e Prisons project for efficiency and digitisation in prison management
- Model Prison Manual: on services available to prisoners
Way forward
- Law commission recommendation
- Relief to victims of wrongful prosecution monetary or non monetary
- Separate law and order and investigative wings of police
- Liberalisation of bail conditions to reduce overcrowding
- Release on paroles
- Malimath Committee
- Increase ratio of judges to population
- Nyaya Panchayats for small cases
- Digital infrastructure - video conferencing between jails and courts
- Legal procedures to strengthen timely investigation
Custodial Death
- Death of a person who is undertrial or convicted in a crime inside the prison or police care. It can be due to natural or manmane causes- illness, suicide, torcher etc.
- National Campaign against torture - about 3/4th death in police custody due to torture in 2019.
- Challenges to curb them
- Lack of string legislation against torcher
- Lack of independent functioning of police force
- Lack of accountability and impunity enjoyed by police force
- Law does not permit a citizen to sue a police officer
- Internal departmental enquiries for wrongdoings
- Poor conviction rate NCRB data between 2001 to 2018 only 26 policemen were convicted of custodial violence despite 1727 such deaths
- Weak functioning of NHRC
- Popular support encourage such action
Comments
Post a Comment