It has become the norm for the the rich and powerful to get bail with ease while the commoner and the poor languish in jail, the Law Commission of India said in its latest report.
“It has become a norm than an aberration in most jurisdictions including India that the powerful, rich and influential obtain bail promptly and with ease, whereas the masses/the common/the poor languish in jails,” the 268th report of the Law Commission led by former Supreme Court judge, Justice B.S. Chauhan, observed.
The Commission recommended to the government amendments to the bail provisions in the Criminal Procedure Code with emphasis on the early release on bail of undertrials.
It recommended that undertrials who have completed one-third of the maximum sentence for offences up to seven years be released on bail. Those who are awaiting trial for offences punishable with imprisonment of more than seven years, should be bailed out if they have completed one-half of their sentence. The Commission said new legal provisions for remission should be included to cover those undertrials who have already endured the full length of the maximum sentence. Prolonged periods in prison where undertrials and convicts were not segregated would only make hardened criminals of the former, it said.
By sheer statistics, the report made a case for introducing urgent amendments to rescue undertrials. It said a majority of them (70.6 per cent) are illiterate or semiliterate and belong to socio-economically marginalised groups. Sixty-seven per cent of the prison population is awaiting trial.
‘Unnecessary’ arrests
The Commission quoted an expert study which said that a majority of the arrests are for “very minor prosecutions.” “Over 60 per cent of arrests were unnecessary and such arrests accounted for 42.3 per cent of jail expenditure,” it said in the report released on May 23.
The Commission said the “inconsistency in bail system may be one of the reasons for the overcrowding of prisons.” The report pointed out that 4,19,623 inmates, consisting of convicts, detenues and undertrials, are lodged in 1,401 jails. It said the imprisonment rate in India is 33 per 1,00,000 of the national population.
Pressure on prisons
“This means that prisons are buckling under the weight of inmate population. According to the Prison Statistics of India, the prison occupancy stands at 114 per cent. The prisons have 53,009 officials to take care of 4,19,623 inmates which amounts to one official per eight inmates.”
While noting that heinous crimes like murder had increased by 250 per cent, rape by 873 per cent and kidnapping and abduction by 749 per cent since 1953, the Commission added a word of caution that the government should not view bail system as a “panacea” to ensure a responsive criminal justice system, but instead it should be re-calibrated to fit the needs of modern society.
