No justice in sight for many prisoners jailed without conviction

In 2011, the High Court in Denmark refused to extradite Kim Peter Davy alias Niels Holck, the accused in the infamous 1995 Purulia arms drop case on the grounds of deplorable jail conditions and human rights issues in India. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue of his extradition with Danish minister Lars Christian Lilleholt last January, a letter from Danish foreign ministry has once again inquired about the details of the place where Davy, if extradited, would be lodged and the conditions of jails in India.

Wilful defaulter Vijay Mallya, who is wanted in India for defaulting on loans worth Rs 9,000 crore is also avoiding his extradition, taking the plea in the UK court that Indian prisons were “not up to international standards” and therefore he can’t return. Their fears could have been dismissed as unfounded and an attempt to avoid noose of law, but a recent act of Tihar jail authorities —where 18 inmates were subjected to severe torture without any justifiable reason — has made the situation for both the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) precarious. Earlier, a lawyer had presented blood-soaked cloth of his client lodged in the jail — claiming that he had been beaten to such a severity that it has resulted in a constant fear of being killed by the prison authorities. While punishing offenders is the primary function of all governments, behavioural sciences have belied the impression that harsh punishments help in checking crime. Therefore, modern societies have acknowledged that the real purpose of sending criminals to prison is to transform them into law-abiding citizens by inculcating in them a distaste for crime and criminality.

Former Director General of Prison Ajay Aggarwal had written in one of the Tihar publications: “If the Indian society wishes to have less criminals, it shall have to make a two-pronged approach to solve the problem — first to counteract socio-economic conditions which contribute to crime and second to extend all possible help and co-operation to the treatment devices enabling an offender to return to the social milieu as a normal citizen.”

But the 111-page report of a committee appointed by the Delhi High Court recently to investigate torture of prisoners makes amply clear there was much similarity between the Tihar Central Jail and the jail of the film /Sholay. The jailer in Sholay also looked believable. Most of the jail staff wore the attitude most aptly summarised by the celluloid jailer himself in the film: hum angrezon ke zamane ke jailer hain, hum un logon mein se nahin jo qaidiyon ko sudharne ki fikr mein lage rahate hain, hum jaanate hain ki tum nahin sudhroge. (I am a jailer of the British period. I am not from among those who are worried sick in trying to reform the prisoners because I know very well that you (the prisoners) cannot be reformed.)

The Supreme Court has delivered many judgments emphasising rights of the prisoners. Last year the Centre and state governments had spent Rs 500 crore on prisoners. But a meagre amount that is 0.8 per cent has gone to welfare and 0.9 per cent for their vocational education. It is quite natural that realities in jails across India should be the exact opposite to the written words of the rule book. Main problems in jails are overcrowding, corruption, lack of properly trained jail staff, attitude and orientation of jail administration, etc.  There is also government’s apathy towards reformation of the prison administration. There is no uniform prison manual to take into account the changed conditions. Even the meagre rights available to prisoners under these outdated laws are not permitted by the jail authorities. Their motto is that slaves do not deserve information necessary for emancipation. Our conscience does not agitate against the maltreatment of poor prisoners, an overwhelming majority of whom happen to be inside jails without a conviction. The prison administration needs to be detached from police set-up and a separate department of correctional administration needs to be established. The officers of jail administration should have training and inclination in social sciences, humanities, and management. There is also need to have fresh look on many senseless restrictions imposed on the prisoners, which have so far only bred corruption.

An equally important aspect is the working conditions of jail employees. Their wages are among the lowest in the government departments. In fact, the salaries of the employees of the Tihar are even lower than their counterparts in the neighbouring states. Do we expect these officials to maintain their honesty at such odds and with so many opportunities? Do we expect that such low-paid and barely trained people be able to ensure reformation and rehabilitation of the criminals sent to them?  The magnitude of work assigned to the jail employees at Tihar can be understood by some simple fact that any given day more than 14,000 prisoners are lodged at eight Tihar Jails whose holding capacity is around 4,000 inmates. Around 1,200-1,500 new prisoners enter the prisons daily while around 300 prisoners get out of the jail. In this manner, the Tihar Jail officials handle one lakh prisoners in a year.

The author is Editor, strategic affairs, DNA