Overuse of pretrial detention goes on unchecked: Amnesty study

Amnesty International India (AII) on Wednesday released ‘Justice under trial’, a study on pretrial detention in India that highlights that overuse of pretrial detention continues to violate detainees’ rights.

Legal safeguards to prevent excessive pretrial detention are routinely flouted across states in India, leading to violation of detainees’ fair trial rights, the global human rights NGO said in its study.

The study analyses the responses to about 3,000 RTI applications filed by AII to the nearly 500 district and central prisons in the country on the implementation of safeguards to protect the rights of pretrial detainees or undertrials.

The study was released by Vetrimaaran, the director of Tamil film ‘Visaranai’, which is based on undertrials.

“In the world, many things have changed but pretrial detention and its cruelty have not changed. The law should be reformed to avoid the cruelty faced by undertrials,” he said.

Asmita Basu, Programme Director, AII, said: “Two out of three people in India’s prisons are undertrials, and this proportion has not budged  despite Supreme Court judgements, executive guidelines and legal reforms.”
DH News Service