"3'D' In Judiciary "
By Amit Chamaria
23 November, 2007
Countercurrents.org
For its dialogue -'Tarikh Pe Tarikh' (another date
after a date -a hearing after another hearing. ) a
film "Damini" drew much applause at one time across
the country for well presentation of the inside story
of the courtrooms. In fact, apart from other
anomalies, the word 'delay' has become part and
parcel of the Indian judicial system. More over, very
often many undertrial prisoners are 'detained' more
time in jails than they are supposed to undergo for
the crime committed. There are several instances that
undertrial inmates have 'died' during the course of
long and troublesome trial periods. Presently, these
3 'D' - 'Delay', 'Detention' and 'Death' of the
Judicial System need to be examined from a
sociological angle. Available reports substantially
reveal that the 3 'D' are confined to certain section
of the society.Contextually, a latest report of 2006 says that
total population of undertrial inmates in country is
217130 including 7852 females at the end of 2004. They
are well above 60 percent of the total prisoners.
According to the National Crime Record Bureau reports
(under the Ministry of Home affairs) published in
November 2006, 44470 undertrials are from SC community
(20% of the total) and 25073 from ST community (11.5%
of the total). Overcrowding in jails is not a new
thing. But it should be a matter of scanning that why
Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Bihar, have been
reported to have much overcrowding of prisons with
occupancy rate 300.9%, 194.5%, 164.5%, and 153.3%,
respectively. Jharkand has recorded maximum over
crowding of its jails in the country. This is because
of the predominant percentage of undertrials prisoners
there, counted at 71.13%. While Chhattisgarh, Orissa
and Bihar have percentage of undertrails at 48.9,
71.8, and 82.8, respectively. It further reveals the
fact that these four states are most socially and
educationally backward and tribal dominated excluding
Bihar. As data reveals that the three tribal dominated
states -Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Orissa- have
noticeable percentage of under trials belonging to
Scheduled tribes and Scheduled Castes community. The
percentage of STs in these states is 26, 31, 16.7 and
that of for SCs 21.3, 18, 20.5 respectively. But
Jharkand has maximum number of STs undertrials, that
is, 3225. Bihar is not far behind in this respect.
The percentage of SCs under trials there is 23.33 (i.
e. 6389 in number).On the other hand, undoubtedly, Haryana and
Gujarat - the most developed states in the country
have also higher percentage of undertrials inmates
registered at 61.6 and 62.2 with jail occupancy rate
too high at 214.2% and 208% respectively.
Surprisingly, the two states have significant
percentage of SCs and STs under trials. SC and ST
undertrials percentage in Haryana is 23.87 and 10.23
and in Gujarat 25.64 and 26 respectively.
In addition to this, among the total undertrials
inmates, 172572 or 80 % are illiterate or little
literate (below class X). And astoundingly, all
above-mentioned states have fair number of illiterates
or little literate undertrials inmates. Needless to
emphasize that the percentage of literacy among
Dalits, Adivasi and most backward castes is very less
as compared to rest of the society.Further, among total undertrials, 2,069 have been
languishing for five years or more in different jails
of the country. The highest number of such undertrial
prisoners was reported from Bihar with a number of 628
undertrails (30.35% of total such type of inmates).
These features provide ample testimony of what our
judicial system is.Now, it may be easily concluded through a close
scrutiny of the above data that the 3 ' D' are
restricted to that segments of the society who are
socially backward in all dimensions of the life and at
the bottom line of the social hierarchy of the Varna
system. And certainly, Dalits and Adivasi prominently
fall in this category. After all, a convention seems
to lend support to it as well- people are asked to
swear inside the courtroom by Gita --- a text that
upholds ' Varna Ashram' -- that in a way goes to
endorse the 3 'D' syndrome.
Amit Chamaria is a freelance journalist.
He can be reached at [email protected]
Leave A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Digg it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So, as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.
Syndicate CC Headlines On Your Blog
