‘Jail is rule and Bail is exception’ but SC says it is ‘bail, not jail, must be the norm’.
Mobilenews24x7 Bureau
Nationalist credential does not require the judges to judiciously follow a neo-dictum of ‘Jail is rule and Bail is exception’ to prove their nationalist credentials. That is not within the spirits of human rights also.
Is it not the duty of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, the NHRC and the law makers from these oppressed sections to address the weakness in free legal aid system?
People mustn’t languish in jails unnecessarily.
This was not the new India as dreams for a robust democracy was knitted. If over 75% under trails languish in the Indian jails then that is negation of the built-in spirit that, it is bail, not the jail that must guide the presumptions.
Bail, not jail, in cases where applicable.
On Wed, the Supreme Court granted bail to activist Teesta Setalvad in the 2002 Gujarat riots case, underlining yet again that bail, not jail, must be the norm.
Last year, the top court asked the criminal courts to be liberal in granting bail, reminding them that the presumption of innocence is a universal concept. But many judges manning India’s high and lower courts, lawyers and law enforcement agencies seem to make a habit of overlooking these guidelines.
This anti-bail instinct is burdening our creaking prison system. According to the NCRB 2021 data, more than 75% of the inmates are under-trials. Indian prisons have a capacity for 4,25,609 inmates, which is 1,28,425 short of the requirement based on the number of prisoners. Such overcrowding is not just a burden on the exchequer and a security challenge but also a health risk for those inside.
Three out of five undertrial prisoners lodged across Indian prisons are from Dalit, Tribal and OBC communities who often fail to get bail because of a weak free legal aid system.
Along with a mindset change on bail, these structural challenges must be addressed. People mustn’t languish in jails unnecessarily.
