women prisoners – India Legal

Supreme Court to hear plea highlighting increasing number of pregnancies in Indian prisons

Chayanika Joshi — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 06:38:47 +0000

The Supreme Court has decided to take suo motu cognisance of the increasing number of women inmates getting pregnant in prisons across the country.

The development followed a petition filed in the Calcutta High Court, highlighting the increasing number of women prisoners becoming pregnant while in custody in correctional homes of West Bengal.

The Bench of Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Justice Sanjay Kumar directed Senior Advocate Gaurav Agrawal, who is the amicus curiae in the suo motu case on the overcrowding of prisons, to examine the issue of pregnancies in prisons and report back to the court.

The issue was highlighted in the High Court by an amicus curiae during the mentioning of a case related to prison reforms and correctional homes in the State of West Bengal.

The Divisional Bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Supratim Bhattacharya took a serious view of the submission and said that the matter would be placed before a Division Bench of the High Court hearing criminal cases. The petition suggested that the male employees of correctional homes should be prohibited from entering enclosures holding women prisoners.

A single-judge Bench of Justice Amanullah is currently hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) aimed at tackling the overcrowding crisis in Indian prisons.

NALSA empowering people by raising awareness about legal rights, helping in their actual realisation: Justice DY Chandrachud

India Legal — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 05:57:22 +0000

Chief Justice of India Designate and Executive Chairman of National Legal Services Authority, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud has said that NALSA was empowering people by raising awareness about legal rights and helping them in actual realisation of these rights.

Justice Chandrachud expressed these views, while virtually launching the two flagship campaigns of NALSA, titled ‘Empowerment of Citizens through Legal Awareness and Outreach’ and ‘Haq_Humara_Bhi_To_Hai@75’ on Monday.

He said NALSA was a means to realise the constitutional ambition of providing social, economic, and political justice to everyone in India. Its aim was not just limited to providing legal aid, rather the statutory body focused on empowering people to effectively seek their legal entitlements within the four corners of legal system.

To further its vision of creating an inclusive legal system, so as to secure fair and meaningful justice for people belonging to marginalised communities of the society, NALSA has been taking active steps to work at the grass-roots level of the society and develop human capabilities, added the CJI-designate.

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He said the vision of these two week Pan India campaigns was to work right at the grassroot level and build capacity of the incapacitated.

As per Justice Chandrachud, these nationwide public awareness campaigns will be carried out for a period of two weeks, till November 13, 2022.

As part of campaign, Empowerment of Citizens through Legal Awareness and Outreach, the outreach teams will visit every village panchayat and sub divisions of the villages throughout the country and raise legal awareness about issues relevant to the people such as the fundamental rights and duties enshrined under the Constitution, labour laws, gender justice, among others.

Talking about the second campaign, Haq_Humara_Bhi_Toh_Hai@75, he said it aimed at providing basic legal assistance to the undertrial prisoners and children in conflict with law.

Under this, district teams formulated by District Legal Services Authorities will visit prisons and child care institutions to interact with individual undertrial prisoners and children in conflict with law.

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Through such interactions, the teams will not only ascertain if the concerned individual is represented by a lawyer, but also provide free legal counselling and assistance, including drafting and filing appropriate legal applications. The district teams will also ascertain the needs of the concerned individual and ensure that they are in contact with their family and friends during the course of their imprisonment, he added.

Talking about inmates, the CJI-designate said for many prisoners, the process itself became punishment due to the difficulties in obtaining bail, which invariably prolonged their imprisonment.

There were cases of undertrial prisoners losing their invaluable right to default bail simply because they had no information with respect to the status of their charge sheets.

Even if the prisoners were able to secure bail, they were often unable to furnish the necessary bail bonds to secure their freedom, he pointed out.

He further highlighted the plights of female undertrial prisoners, stating that a large number of women were languishing in prisons across India for want of proper legal support.

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Illiteracy and lack of financial resources often serve as a barrier for them to understand the legal complexities of approaching a lawyer and enforcing their rights. Similarly, children in conflict of law also require special care and attention, he added.

The Supreme Court Judge said there was no doubt that the instrumentalities involved in the criminal justice system, including the police, judiciary and lawyers have been doing their bit to resolve the plight of undertrial prisoners in India. However, NALSA can play an effective role in alleviating the plight of the prisoners by becoming their voice and empowering them to seek proper legal recourse, he observed.

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The Executive Chairman of NALSA expressed his gratitude to the members of State and District Legal Services Authorities, along with the judicial officers, panel lawyers, law students, para legal volunteers, social workers, anganwadi workers and others working towards the cause of legal aid, saying that without their untiring efforts, this could never have become possible.
NALSA was constituted on November 9, 1995 under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 to provide free Legal Services to the weaker sections of the society and organise Lok Adalats for amicable settlement of disputes.

India Legal show: Jail reforms are the need of the hour, assert panellists

India Legal — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 12:18:17 +0000

Above: Photo by Bhavana Gaur

The recent edition of India Legal show centered on the current scenario of jails in India and what steps should be taken for jail reforms in the wake of the recent incident involving incarcerated Indrani Mukherjea (she was beaten up after her inmate was killed) thus exposing lapses in the jails.

Rajshri Rai, Editor-in-Chief, APN anchored the show. The panellists included:

Justice VK Mathur, ex Judge, Allahabad High Court
Pallav Shishodia , Senior Advocate, Supreme Court
Rupinder Suri, Senior Advocate and President, Supreme Court Bar Association
AL Banerjee, ex DGP, Uttar Pradesh
Aishwarya Bhati, Advocate, Supreme Court
Justice RB Mishra, ex Acting chief justice, Himachal Pradesh

Rai started the discussion and asked Banerjee as to why jails in India are overcrowded, accommodating double the number of prisoners than their capacity. Banerjee replied, “The system is responsible for it. The current applied their Greek Roman law started with the East India Company’s making of jails and courts. Before that there was no for jails. In the Mughal period people were put inside forts and underground basements. Lord Macaulay in 1936 had done an inspection of the condition of jails in India and in 1937 he proposed how jails should be in the country. The first jail that the British government made was in Agra and they said that every province must have a jail and they made a jail manual for all the provinces.”

He further added, “Today in the constitution, jails are a state subject and every state has its own jail manual. According to NCRB data, the most number of undertrials are in India and the ones punished are less. Supreme Court in one of its judgments had said that there should be bail, not jail. Until and unless, there are no reforms made in the system this crisis would continue or else we will have to build more jails for which we require resources.”

Justice Mishra attributed overcrowding in jails due to the pendency of undertrial cases. Justice Mishra stated, “Yes it is true that the overcrowding is because of undertrial cases. Around 85 percent of the prisoners are undertrials. There is a saying that jail is an exception and bail is a rule. As per my observation there are many prisoners who are innocent and the other who are kept there have been kept without any evidence.”

He advocated for the uniform jail manual for transforming the jails. “There are two jails, one in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh where the prisoners are so much involved in activities that they pursue their talent and skills. They organize plays and cultural activities and the other is an open jail in Uttar Pradesh. There are only minor differences in the system. There are places where corruption is on, it has become a money market. And things have become politicized. Legal authorities are doing such important work by spreading legal awareness among people. The court is under pressure and the disposing of criminal cases does not happen quickly, but undoubtedly there must be a common manual in the system.”

Drawing attention to the women prisoners in jails, Bhati said, “As far as women prisoners are concerned, their condition is actually very dire and women are already very vulnerable in the society. When they are so vulnerable in open society, then think how they are in jails where fundamental rights are also curtailed. However ideal the related theory or manual might be, in practice it is not followed. In most of the cases, the prisoners are treated very inhumanely and in most cases their right to live with dignity is completely forgotten.”

Sharing the same sentiments, Justice Mathur also felt that jail reforms were the need of the hour. “Jail system has to undergo a lot many reforms. I remember an instance where a new district formed had no lockup therefore the prisoners had to be taken to the nearby district. They were taken in a van for their trials and irrespective of the weather they had to remain inside that van, no one took care of them, and if possible the relatives supplied them the necessary things. It was very inhuman to treat them in that manner.”

Shishodia also espoused for the jail reforms. Said he, “This is again the matter of like society, like institutions. In the name of custodial interrogation people are tortured and the fights between jail inmates for some prisoners getting special privileges are common. This is not something happening only in our country and it is common in other countries too. Reforms are a continuous process. There are a lot many right-thinking people who are doing it but much more is to be done.”

We present bytes/views of some of the panellists below:

AL Banerjee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w1SH_K6BgU

Pallav Shishodia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDE0PziLSGg

Rupinder Suri

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t74P4Fhkj6E

Justice VK Mathur

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfANvK9_ZsA

Aishwarya Bhati

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgU_5aChCxQ

Justice RB Mishra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIsaEnDkHJw

—Compiled by Lily Paul