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| Verdict Via Video: Indian Prisoners to Get Speedy Justice |
| By OneWorld.net |
| Published: 03/20/2003 |
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The north Indian state of Bihar, which is one of the most lawless, has set up a courts-to-jail video conferencing system to provide speedier justice to thousands of prisoners languishing in poorly-maintained and overcrowded jails. 'The high-tech system will not only reduce jail squeeze, it will also save time and expense involved in transporting prisoners,' said Saurabh Gupta, technical director of the National Informatics Center (NIC), the government agency which is providing technical support. Courts hooked up to the new system will employ a video link to record statements of prisoners as evidence. 'This experiment is perhaps the first of its kind in Asia,' said Gupta. The new system, which was inaugurated on February 11 this year by the chief justice of the state high court, Ravi S. Dhawan, will link all jails in Bihar in a phased manner. The system, which cost US$ 30,000, will make Bihar the first state in the country to use a video conferencing system for early disposal of court cases. Reforms were sorely needed in Bihar's overflowing prisons. India's second most populous state is notorious for its filthy lock-ups, filled mostly with prisoners awaiting trial. The state has 54 jails with a capacity of 20,459 prisoners but the jails harbor nearly 36,000 prisoners. And over 30,000 are those waiting - or rather praying - for their trial to begin. Sagar Yadav from Fatuha, a small town near state capital Patna, was booked for a petty crime that would have got him a maximum punishment of three years. But, Yadav has already spent more than four years in jail. Another prisoner, Manoj Kumar Singh's, plight is worse. He has already spent nearly eight years in jail for an offence, which would have got him three years in jail. Every jail is full of horror stories. Done in by a callous system, the prisoners' fate is compounded by judicial delays. It is the poorest of the Indian society who suffer the most. They are unable to afford lawyers and cannot bribe prison officials to get their cases expedited. State jail minister, Ashok Chaudhary agrees. 'Our judicial system is so cumbersome that it takes months and in most cases, even years, for hearings to begin. And if the accused is poor, the delay is more pronounced,' Chaudhary says. Under-trials are not produced in courts for several months at a stretch. The reasons are a severe shortage of vehicles, few policemen and fewer government lawyers. Incredibly, a shortage of handcuffs has aggravated the situation. With a soaring crime rate, authorities are pushing in more and more prisoners into restricted spaces. The Motihari district jail, 200 km north of Patna, is a perfect example. The jail has 1,387 inmates crammed in space meant for 335. Most of the under-trials have already spent more time than the sentence they would have been awarded upon conviction. The jail administration had in year 2001, sent a proposal to the state law department that nearly 150 prisoners who were more than 70 years old should be released. It had also proposed that those those suffering from various diseases should also be released. Conditions for women and children inmates are worse. A research team from an Indian human rights organization, the Peoples Union of Civil Liberty (PUCL), found that children were lodged in almost every jail they visited. Even the government concedes that 196 children are lodged in Bihar jails, which is against the laws of the country. The Indian law says that minors should be kept in special homes under special arrangements, particularly for neglected children. PUCL's state vice president says under no circumstances should any child below 18 be kept in a jail. Women prisoners, most of whom are petty offenders, have to live with their children in the jails. There are no medical facilities and gynecologists do not pay visits to women's wards. Jail conditions aren't better in other Indian states either. If Bihar jails have nearly 85 per cent prisoners who are under-trials, neighboring Uttar Pradesh has 89.77 per cent under-trial prisoners. The northeastern state of Meghalaya has nearly 97.3 per cent under-trials and the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir has around 89.9 per cent. The southern state of Tamil Nadu has the least number of under-trial prisoners at just 32.78 per cent of the prison inmates. The National Human Rights Commission estimates that nationwide, nearly 226,200 prisoners await trial out of 300,000 prisoners. |
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