Forgotten behind prison walls

HARSH MANDER

Under-trials often spend years in jails without trial or conviction because they are too poor to get themselves out…

They cannot muster the resources to afford bail and lawyers...

Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

Wasted years: An under-trial at the Tihar Jail.

Tens of thousands of deprived men and women are trapped in jails throughout the country, often for many years, without trial or conviction, separated from their families, exiled from hope. The predicament of these “under-trial” prisoners, who constitute as many as two-thirds of our overcrowded jail populations, have for many decades — but all too briefly and ineffectually — stirred the conscience of courts, official commissions and human rights activists, but little has changed for them. Most of these unfortunate, incarcerated men and women — and sadly children — are very poor, and from socially disadvantaged groups. It is by no means a fact that most crimes in our country are committed by very poor people. It is just that these dispensable and forgotten people are too powerless to free themselves from the vice-like grip of the law: they lack the money, education and political clout to walk free. They cannot muster the resources to afford bail and lawyers, and over-burdened courts do not find the time to try them.

Individuals who are charged with grave offences are arrested, and magistrates have the discretion to either release them on bail, or order their detention in the custody of the police or prisons. An “under-trial” prisoner is one against whom there is a charge of violation of law, but this charge has still not been proved in a court of law, and who has, for whatever reason, not been released on bail. Individuals who cannot access bail remain in prison until they are discharged or acquitted, or convicted and sent to jail, or released after completing their sentence, paying a fine, admonition, or on probation.

An estimated 66 per cent of all prison inmates are under-trials, but in some States the proportion goes up to as high as 80 per cent. The total prison population as on December, 2006 for all categories of inmates was 3,73,271. Of these 2,43,244 were under-trials. An overwhelming 96 per cent of these are men. Uttar Pradesh reports the highest number of under-trails, followed by Bihar.

As far back as in 1978, K.F. Rustamji, Member of the National Police Commission, observed compassionately in his report on under-trials that prisons are “a system which is slowly grinding thousands of people into dust”. He found hundreds of under-trials to be “dumb, simple persons, caught in the web of the law, unable to comprehend as to what has happened, what the charge against them is, or why they have been sent to jail. These are the people without a calendar or a clock, only a date in a court diary, extended from hearing to hearing...There are many charged with ticketless travel, possession of weapons, or illicit liquor or some minor infraction of the law...” He found to his dismay that “several of them have been undertrials for more than five years”.
Lost years

It is important to remember that under-trials are incarcerated for these long periods even though no offence has actually been proved against them. It is possible that at the end of the trial they are discharged, but nothing can bring back their irretrievably lost years spent behind jail walls, and the stigma, separation and abuse they suffered, as did their loved ones. Even more tragic is that many of these under-trial prisoners are not even charged with any offence. They are picked up under preventive detention sections of the Code of Criminal Procedure, like Section 109, which enable State authorities to detain people when they consider this to be necessary to prevent crimes. But I observed in many years in rural districts that these sections are widely used against impoverished and destitute people, including those who are homeless, uprooted, mentally disturbed or destitute. As observed by Rustamji: “Some of them looked as if they have been youngsters wandering over the country, drop-outs from school, and the law had picked them up because the number of cases had to be brought up to the specified figure”.
Inc arcerated

It is only rarely that their condition comes to light through public-spirited legislation. In response to one such petition, the Supreme Court observed that an “alarmingly large number of men and women, including children are behind prison bars for years awaiting trial in courts of law. The offences with which some of them are charged are trivial, which, even if proved, would not warrant punishment for more than a few months, perhaps for a year or two, and yet these unfortunate forgotten specimens of humanity are in jail, deprived of their freedom, for periods ranging from three to ten years without even as much as their trial having commenced”. It also notices that “a large number of remand and undertrial prisoners are languishing in prisons because of their poverty. They are there because they are not able to furnish the bail, whereas the affluent can afford to do so”. In another case, it observed: “Some of the undertrial prisoners have been in jail for as many as 5, 7 or 9 years and a few of them even more than 10 years, without their trial having begun. What faith can these lost souls have in the judicial system which denies them a bare trial for so many years and keeps them behind bars, not because they are guilty, but because they are too poor to afford bail and the courts have no time to try them”. Instances of some mentally ill under-trials, apprehended for petty offences like ticketless travel and theft, and languishing in prisons for more than 20 years, were brought to the notice of the Supreme Court.

All incarcerated persons also face extreme psychological stress. This has been poignantly described by Jawaharlal Nehru, who spent many years behind jail walls: “High walls and iron gates cut off the little world of prison from the wide world outside. Here in this prison world everything is different; there are no colours, no changes, no movement, no hope, no joy. Life runs its dull round with a terrible monotony; it is all flat desert land with no high points and no oases to quench one’s thirst or shelter one from the burning heat. Days run into weeks and weeks into months and years till the sands of life run out. All the might of the State is against him and none of the ordinary checks are available. Even the voice of pain is hushed, the cry of agony cannot be heard beyond the high walls”.
Indiscriminate grouping

Contrary to express provisions in the jail manual, all categories of inmates tend to be huddled together in most prisons. Thus under-trials, many of them innocent or young impressionable petty offenders, are thrown together with hardened criminals, who are able to initiate them into the world of crime. Many prisons also illegally house juvenile offenders, “vagrants”, destitute children and mentally ill persons.

Since under-trial prisoners are not yet confirmed law violators, even correctional and rehabilitation services, such as may exist for convicts, are denied to them. Under-trials therefore are usually left idle with no productive work. They sit idle in the company of others in the same situation as them. In this sense they are even worse off than confirmed convicts. The Supreme Court has directed repeatedly that under no circumstances can any persons be held in prison as under-trials, if they spend more than half the time they would if they were ultimately convicted of the crime that are charged with. Yet this direction is ignored and flouted with impunity almost universally in jails across the country.

And the muffled suffering and casual injustice against these most dispossessed men and women, forgotten behind the tall prison walls, persists without end.

Source: http://www.hindu.com/mag/2009/06/21/stories/2009062150090300.htm

Rs 1 crore fine for power theft

HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, June 05, 2009

A Delhi court on Thursday fined an industrialist and his son nearly Rs 1 crore, besides sending them to prison, in the “highest ever” quantum of punishment awarded in a power theft case here.

While industrialist Pooran Chand has been sentenced to four years’ rigorous imprisonment, son Mukesh Lakra got seven-and-a-half months in prison.

Holding Chand a “habitual power thief”, the court also debarred him from getting electricity from any source for three months. He had been caught earlier for stealing over 102 KW of electricity.

The Special Court of Electricity in Dwarka fined Chand Rs 45.96 lakh. His son, a BSES consumer, was fined Rs 22.98 lakh.

Apart from the individual fines, a civil liability of Rs 30.64 lakh was also levied on them. Failing to pay the amount will attract a simple imprisonment for another six months, the court said.

The BSES said this is the highest even punishment awarded in Delhi.

Chand owns a plastic bicycle wheels manufacturing unit in west Delhi, where the theft occurred. The duo were caught during a raid by BSES in December 2006.