Seventy per cent of India’s prison population consists of people who have not yet been found guilty, Supreme Court Justice Vikram Nath said on Friday, calling for urgent reform in the way legal aid and undertrial detention are handled.
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He noted that most undertrials remain behind bars not because the law mandates it, but because the system has failed them.
[img=1px,1px]https://data.indianexpress.com/election2019/track_1x1.jpg[/img]“There are undertrials who have spent time in prison exceeding the maximum sentence for the very offence they are accused of. There are undertrials charged with bailable offences who remain in custody simply because they could not furnish bail. There are undertrials who would have been acquitted or given suspended sentences had their trials concluded promptly, yet they continue to languish.”
Justice Nath was speaking at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad during the release of the Report of the Fair Trial Programme in Pune and Nagpur, organised by the Square Circle Clinic.
Urgent Need for Accessible and Effective Legal Aid
The Supreme Court judge pointed out that many prisoners were unaware of their right to legal aid, and even those who knew often distrusted the system.
“Even in cases where they do know, they often refrain from seeking it due to distrust stemming from past experiences. They rather go ahead with engaging some private advocate believing that if they pay someone, he’ll do better than the person who is getting nothing out of it.”
This lack of trust and access, he said, defeats the constitutional promise of liberty and dignity.
“When legal aid is rendered in form but not in spirit, it may still comply with procedure, but it fails the Constitution. It fails the idea of justice itself.”
Justice Nath emphasised that legal representation must be both available and effective.
“It is not enough to just provide a lawyer; we must ensure that the representation is effective.”
He also noted that legal aid in India often functions in disconnected silos, leaving poor and unrepresented accused lost in the system.
“It needs to be understood that this is not merely a formality. It is a constitutional duty, one that can decide whether a person spends years in confinement or walks free with dignity.”
Law Schools and Vulnerable Groups Must Be Prioritised
Justice Nath urged law schools to treat legal aid clinics as opportunities for students to learn the real-world impact of law.
“Every law school must treat legal aid clinics as places where justice comes alive, not as extra work to be checked off a list. If a young lawyer’s first real experience of law comes from meeting an undertrial, from seeing his fear and hope, rather than from reading it in a book, we will have already begun to reshape our profession.”
He highlighted that women, prisoners with mental health concerns, and those from marginalised communities face greater hardships.
“True equality demands that we account for the distinct burdens carried by women and other vulnerable groups and shape our laws, policies and institutions in a manner that enables them to stand on equal footing, whether it is through effective legal aid, access to healthcare, safe spaces, or institutional sensitivity.”
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Justice Nath concluded by stressing that improving legal aid is an act of faith in the Constitution, not charity.
“It is not an act of charity, but an act of faith, faith in the Constitution and faith in the equality of all before the law.”
He added that the true test of the justice system lies in how it treats its weakest members.
“The measure of our legal system lies not in the elegance of our jurisprudence or the efficiency of our procedures, but in how we treat the most vulnerable within it.” |
