Justify the Prisoners
My article is motivated by the life of Sarabjit Singh who was a farmer from Bhikhiwind in Tarn Taran district of Punjab and he was arrested by the Pakistani Rangers near Kasur at unmarked Indo-Pak border area in Pakistan in 1990.
Sarabjit was drunk and strayed over the border at night. The arrest was basically of mistaken identity and was mistaken to be an Indian Spy and because of a small mistake he has to spend 23 years in Pakistani jail and died in the captivity.
He was tortured in the Pakistani Jail and convicted for bomb blast in Lahore City of Pakistan as an Indian spy named as Manjit Singh as main accused behind the bomb blast.
Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur fought the case for 23 years with his Pakistani lawyer Adv. Awais Shaikh and caught hold of real Manjit Singh who actually did the blast. But before Sarabjit could have been declared as innocent, he had been attacked in jail by Pakistani prisoners. Sarabjit got seriously injured and admitted to the hospital where he succumbed to his injuries on 2nd May, 2013.
Like Sarabjit there are thousands of prisoners in India and neighboring countries who are innocents and waiting for justice from the court but days are passing by and their families are living in distress conditions, just waiting for justice.
Don’t you think 23 years in jail without any crime or mistake is an injustice to Sarabjit and other similar prisoners? Who will reimburse their time, money, missing moments with the family? Life of each member of the family is ruined and destroyed over the time.
We have seen so many Civil and Criminal cases which are going on from years by years without any justice or results. If we analyze the whole process of judicial system then we come across that it’s not only the population, not only the poverty, not only the police, not only the lawyers, not only the judicial process, not only the corruption, not only the law makers of the country responsible for this situation but everyone is equally and directly involved in the contribution of delays and injustice, this is the bitter truth.
Here, I will highlight few cases from the past which is the perfect example of describing my point.
According to Article 21 of the Constitution, right to speedy trial is a fundamental right of the prisoners. As in the case of Hussainara Khatoon Vs. State of Bihar, large number of people were behind bars for years awaiting trial in the court of law for trivial charge. Even if offences were proved they would not have been charged for more than few months but they have been kept in prison for around 10 years. Isn’t it painful? Just think about it and ask yourself.
There are many instances where innocent people are kept in custody, trialed, brutally tortured, and sometimes they die.
In the case of Ajab Singh Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh, the court said that, “We do not appreciate the death of persons in judicial custody. When such deaths occur, it is not only to the public at large that those holding custody are responsible; they are responsible also to the courts under whose orders they hold such custody.”
The Hon’ble Supreme Court expressed its concerned as, “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 the bars not because they are guilty, but because they are too poor to afford bail and the courts have no time to try them.”
In the case of D.K. Basu Vs. State of West Bengal, the Court treating the letter addressed to the Chief justice as a writ petition made the order as, “In almost every States there are allegations and these allegations are now increasing in frequency of deaths in custody described generally as lock-up deaths. At present there does not appear to be any machinery to effectively deal with such allegations. Since this is an all India question concerning all States, it is desirable to issue notices to all the State Governments to find out whether they are desire to say anything in the matter.”
According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Ministry of Home Affairs 2015 reports, there are 1,401 jails in the country with total capacity of 3,66,781 but total number of jail inmates are 4,19,623 with Occupancy Rate of 114.4% and the most surprising point is that total under-trials inmate percentage is 67.2% i.e. 2,82,076 inmates which is very high. Here, we need to concentrate and dig out the real cause and solution to make the process of trials faster, much faster with delivery of justice.
As per latest report of World Prison Population List, October 2015, more than 10.35 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world, either as pre-trial detainees, remand prisoners or having been convicted and sentenced.
A prisoner when being imprisoned does not lose all the rights. They lose only a part of the rights which are the necessary consequences of the confinement and the rest of the rights are preserved. The prisoners are protected by the rights guaranteed by the International Conventions and Constitution of India, enacted by the legislatures like the Prisons Act 1894, the Prisoners Act 1900.
The rights are protected and interpreted by the Judiciary like an inmate is not ceased as a human being or cannot be treated as a slave or bounded labor, even though the person is in prison, all protections and rights are guaranteed. It is the responsibility of governments to protect the human rights proclaimed by the declaration. Governments are to protect the life, liberty and security of their citizens. They should guarantee that no one is enslaved and that no one is subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention or to torture.
In the case of Parmanand Katara vs Union of India (1989) & others, Supreme Court ruled that the state has an obligation to preserve life whether he is an innocent person or a criminal liable to punishment under the law. With specific reference to health, the right to conditions, adequate for the health and well-being of all was already recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR) states that prisoners have a right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
Prisoners are more likely in a bad state of health when they enter prison, and the unfavorable conditions therein worsen the health situation. Hence the need for health care and treatments will often be greater in a prison than in an outside community. Prisoners are known to be at a high risk for diseases like Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), HIV / AIDS, Hepatitis B, C.
A study published in 2007 reported that in 20 countries, HIV prevalence was more than 10% within prison populations. A study on the prevalence of HIV in Indian Prisons revealed that 1.7% of male and 9.5% of female inmates were HIV positive. This is significantly higher than the national HIV prevalence of 0.32% in males and 0.22% in females.
The report on “Prevention of spread of HIV amongst vulnerable groups in South Asia” from United Nations office on drug and crimes revealed that 63% of prisoners in India had a history of drug abuse. Continuance of high risk behaviors such as unprotected sex and substance abuse after release from prison is also very common. Lack of conjugal life in prisons has also led to prisoners engaging in male-to-male sexual acts. A study conducted in a North Indian jail revealed that 28.8% were homosexual or bi-sexual, 68% had multiple partners and 80.6% engaged in unprotected sex.
In the case of Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration. The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India gave a very obvious answer to the question whether prisoners are persons and whether they are entitled to fundamental rights while in custody, although there may be a shrinkage in the fundamental rights. Supreme Court said;
“Are ‘prisoners’ persons? Yes, of course. To answer in the negative is to convict the nation and the Constitution of dehumanization and to repudiate the world legal order, which now recognizes rights of prisoners in the International Covenant on Prisoners’ Rights to which India has signed assent.” Here, delay in the justice, under trial prisoners; health and rights of convicted shall be protected and preserved. The system shall have to change. Justice should be delivered timely by considering the fundamental rights of the prisoners and considering prisoners as a person. Our Researchers, law makers, government and citizens of India have to stand up and take the challenge to analyze and reform the loop holes in the systems to establish a proper law to justify the prisoners to prison reform and penal reform and creating awareness among the prisoners.
