The jail factsheet shows that out of 1,08,572 convict prisoners all over the country 31,775 are illiterate and 49,977 had education only up to class 10. Needless to say that a majority of them are also poor and can ill-afford “the quality and high cost lawyers” to fight their cases. A huge number of 1,13,885 under-trial jail inmates have just managed to grab education up to class 10.

“The rich, powerful and the famous file petition within minutes and bail themselves out. But that is not the case with the poor and illiterates. Hence they languish in jails for years”, said former CBI director Joginder Singh. He pointed out that former Uttar Pradesh chief secretary Akhand Pratap Singh had managed bail with the help of “the best of the lawyers”. Former UP minister Amarmani Tripathi, convicted for life for the murder of Madhumita Shukla, still hopes to wriggle out of the conviction with the help of a battery of 17 lawyers.

Famous lawyers, who charge astronomical amount to fight cases, are hardly expected to fight for “justice” involving poor unless it gets them positive publicity. A case in point is that of senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani, who had come to the help of Manu Sharma convicted in the Jessica Lal Murder case, is now in the defence of those accused in “Uphar cinema fire” in New Delhi on June 13, 1997, which had left 59 people dead due to asphyxia.
Former Delhi police Commissioner Ved Marwah agrees that a number of poor persons land up in jail for petty crimes, “and rot there as they do not have good legal assistance”.

A look at the country’s prison profile shows that a majority of poor and illiterate inmates languish in jails for years, even for decades, awaiting justice. Many can’t pay security money for bail and several others have been behind bars since they have none outside to stand for them. “An under-trial had spent 33 years in jail before the Human rights commission identified him and put up his case”, says Marwah.

The political mafia turned prison convicts like Tripathi, RJD’s Bihar MP Shahabudeen Ahmed, SP’s MLA Mukhtar Ansari and others lead as much comfortable a life inside the jail premises as money power can buy. But in any case rich and powerful are still few and far between in the country’s jails as under-trials or convicts. The law, most of the time, seem to catch only the economically unprivileged class.

Film star Sanjay Dutt, who was awarded six years jail term  by a TADA court for violating the provisions of the Arms Act is now on bail as the best of the legal assistance was available to him to present his case. The deferential treatments of the accused by the authorities in the country also showed up with Dutt, soon after his conviction, was seen in the company of Prime Minister and home minister at a function.

A scrutiny of jail inmates as provided by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveal that 1,328 jails the number of convicted prisoners with higher education go down with their literacy level and increases with the slide in their education.

The figures provided by NCRB point out that 19,450 prison convicts had education above Class X. The figure dips down further with 5,359 convicts educated below graduation, 1,268 post graduates and 743 convicts holding technical degrees.

The story concerning undertrial prisoners in the country is more or less similar, with the largest segment of 1,13,885 just managing to grab education up to 10th class while 82,628 under-trials again being completely illiterate with 28,763 having education above Class X but below graduation and 8,398 were graduates.
As in the case of convicts, post-graduate under-trials and those under-trials having technical degrees were lesser in number in jails with 1,600 and 1,802 respectively.

There are 2,37,076 under-trials in the country’s prisons, which is 66.2 per cent of the total inmates in all the jails. The total number of inmates in jails across the country is to the tune of 3,58,368.

Prisons with a total capacity of 2,46,497 have already exceeded it by at least 1,11,871 prisoners. The under-trial and convict ratio which was 1:2 during pre-independence era has now reversed to about 7:1.

The reason officially attributed for the large number of under-trials in jails is the shortage of judges required to speed up the trials and convictions. “The law commission has recommended 50 judges per million whereas we have still only nine judges per million”, said officials dealing with law and justice.