Published On : Mon, Nov 28th, 2022

Jail vs Bail: 2 out of 3 inmates lodged in Nagpur Central Jail are undertrials!!

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Ironically, while the President questioned the need for new jails, new barracks are being constructed to accommodate undertrial and convicted prisoners at Nagpur Central Jail

Nagpur: Soon after the sharp exchange between Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju and the Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud, President Draupadi Murmu joined the over overcrowding of prisons debate saying that, “If we are moving towards progress as a society, then why do we need new jails. We should be closing down existing ones,” she stressed.

Madam President was addressing the burning issue of overcrowding of the Indian Prisons. According to the Prison Statistics India 2021, a report published by the Ministry of Home Affairs, while the numbers of convicted has decreased sharply between 2016 and 2021, the number of undertrials on the other hand, has seen a worrisome rise. And Nagpur Central Jail is certainly not an exception!

Of a total of around 3,000 inmates lodged at Nagpur Central Jail, around 1,000 are convicts and a whopping 2,000 (approx) are undertrials. Ironically, while the President Draupadi Murmu questioned the need for new jails, new barracks are being constructed to accommodate undertrial and convicted prisoners at Nagpur Central Jail.

Notably, according to the Prison Statistics India 2021, the numbers of convicts in jails have decreased by 9.5% between 2016 and 2021, whereas the number of undertrial inmates has increased by 45.8%. As of December 31, 2021, around 80% of prisoners were confined for periods up to a year.

The report further states that an overwhelming 95% of undertrials released in 2021 were granted bail by courts while a mere 1.6 per cent were released on acquittal by courts.

It is pertinent to mention that CJI recently said that judges at the grassroots are reluctant to give bail due to the fear of being targeted for granting it in heinous cases.

“Higher judiciary is flooded with bail applications due to reluctance at the grassroots to grant bail. Judges at the grassroots are reluctant to grant bail not because they do not understand crime but there is a sense of fear of being targeted for granting bail in heinous cases,” he said at an event organised by the Bar Council of India.

– Shubham Nagdeve