India ranks 18th in highest undertrial population

 India is almost at the bottom of the list of countries having a high level of undertrial population in jails with a rights organisation saying it points directly to the “dysfunctions” across the criminal justice system

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According to Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), India is ranked 18th for high level of undertrial population in jails. The latest Prison Statistics India 2015 by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that 67.2% out of 4.19 lakh prisoners in India are undertrials.

“Such high proportion of undertrial prisoners points directly to the dysfunctions across the criminal justice system...unnecessary arrests, sluggish pace of criminal trials, deliberate delays to suit administrative convenience, and inadequate security and escort staff to ferry prisoners back and forth from prison to court and vacancies in the magistracy are the primary culprits. The consequence is overcrowded prisons and sub-human prison conditions,” the CHRI report on Tuesday said.

It said India is ranked 18 out of 211 countries for such high levels of undertrial population. “Even Uganda and United Arab Emirates do better while countries such as Libya, Bolivia and Liberia rank worse. In the sub-continent, Sri Lanka and Nepal at 52.8% and 58.9% respectively, do much better than India in holding down the numbers in pre-trial detention while Pakistan and Bangladesh are only marginally worse with 69.1% and 73.8% respectively,” it said.

Analysing the NCRB report, it said one-fourth of the 2.82 lakh undertrial prisoners have been in jails for more than a year while seven out of every ten undertrial prisoners have spent more than three months behind the bars.

This points out that the trials are taking longer to complete and more prisoners now spend longer time in jail than before.

The report shows that in 2001, 19% spent more than a year in prison awaiting trial. The percentage has now increased to 25%. The proportion of prisoners who have spent less than three months in prison has decreased from 40% in 2001 to 35% in 2015.

“Despite all the ‘mission mode’ programmes and attempts to ‘speed up’ trials, the unfortunate reality is that the liberty of those whose guilt has not been established is being curtailed for even longer periods than before,” the report said.