The Delhi High Court has asked the Law Commission of India to consider whether a new legislation can be brought in for relief and rehabilitation of victims of wrongful prosecution and incarceration.
At present, there is no statutory or legal scheme for compensating those who spent years in jail before being acquitted.
The National Crime Records Bureau says that of the 4,19,623 inmates lodged in jails nationwide in 2015, 67% were undertrials: those remanded in judicial custody by court pending investigation or trial. Prison records show 3,599 undertrials were detained for five years or more. The highest number of such prisoners were in Uttar Pradesh (1,364), followed by West Bengal (294) and Bihar (278). During the same year, 82,585 undertrials were released on acquittal.
Best years spent
“The instances of those being acquitted by the High Court or the Supreme Court after many years of imprisonment are not infrequent,” said a Bench of Justices S. Muralidhar and I.S. Mehta. “They are left to their [own] devices without any hope of reintegration into society or rehabilitation since the best years of their life have been spent behind bars...”
Over the years, the Supreme Court has held that compensation can be awarded by constitutional courts for violation of fundamental rights under Article 21 of the Constitution. The rulings included compensation to those who were wrongly incarcerated, but it is not easily available to all similarly placed persons. “The possibility of invoking civil remedies can, by no stretch of imagination, be considered efficacious, affordable or timely. Further, this has to invariably await the outcome of the case which may take an unconscionably long time,” the Bench said.
The Bench directed the Commission to undertake a comprehensive study and make its recommendation to the Union government.