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FAMILY LIFE of UNDERTRIAL PRISONERS Abstract FAMILY LIFE OF UNDERTRIAL PRISONERS Abstract Undertrial prisoners when incarcerated effects many things not only their life inside the prison but even outside is affected. There is a lot of ambush that their family has to go through. Its not even limited to people in the society but their own blood related relatives severe their ties with the family of the prisoner. This is not even limited to the time when the prisoner is incarcerated even after release there are the same society and relatives and the difficulty doesn’t lessen instead the whole family is seen as a convicted person even if they are falsely accused just because they have stayed in prison. Introduction Undertrial prisoners are those who have been convicted for offences which they are accused of committing. In layman’s term any prisoner which is undergoing trial in the courts of Indian is known as undertrial prisoners in India. The 78th Report of Law commission those prisoners awaiting in prisons for their trial with non bailable offence or them whose bail amounts are so high that they cannot afford it were also included with those out on bail. Also, the prisoners whose charge sheets are not filed and their trial has not even commenced but they are taken into custody.1 These prisoners are not convicted2 and are just accused of a certain crime and their trial process still remains. It is well known how the family of prisoners are treated and for a matter of fact they are the poor who are in an abundance been incarcerated, making the people with them who are most probably illiterate believe that they have been convicted of an offence and not the petty ones. Prisoners who are undertrial of any offence they are accused of committing are found many a times to be innocent which makes their social life miserable. All their social circle society family tends to see them in the light of a prisoner. Even if they are wrongly accused of 1 Vidushi Gupta, the state of undertrial incarceration in India The Criminal Law Blog (2021), https://criminallawstudiesnluj.wordpress.com/2020/10/25/the-state-of-undertrial-incarceration-in-india/ (last visited May 21, 2021). 2 Vignesh Radhakrishnan & Sumant Sen, Data | 70% prisoners in India are undertrials The Hindu (2021), https://www.thehindu.com/data/data-70-prisoners-in-india-are-undertrials/article32569643.ece (last visited May 21, 2021). something that doesn’t matter. There is a wrong that stays with them forever. Human is a social animal and this process destroys that completely. Not even just the adults who go through this there are also juvenile prisons by which the wrongly accused prisoners have to go through the social dilemma. Before even starting a social life, they have been put inside a jail for so called reformation which truthfully doesn’t bring them anything. A report of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Prison Statistics India 2019 there were 1350 prisons in India as of 2019. The undertrial prisoners from 2018 to 2019 increased by 2.15%. Out of 478600 prisoners there were 330487 prisoners who were undertrials prisoners accounting for almost 70% of the whole prison population. The greatest number of these prisoners were found in Uttar Pradesh followed by Bihar and then Maharashtra.3 According to World Prison Brief India is only 15th among 217 countries for undertrial prisoners which means only 14 countries have a higher proportion of undertrial prisoners than India.4 Definition of Family Members In general terms a family is understanded by the people who are in relation with blood or the spouses of respective people in case of non-blood relation. People who are in blood relation can be anybody from parents to siblings to children of one. All are considered to be family. But if we have to understand the meaning of family members legally it is as follows, family member will include husband and wife, son or daughter, parents, siblings or any other person related to the person by blood or marriage, even if not dependent on the person.5 So, a basic understanding of those who are family members to a prisoner are those who are relatives to a person by blood or by marriage. These are the immediate family of any person including the undertrial prisoners. 3 Prison Statistics Indian 2019, 26 (2020), https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/PSI-2019-27-08-2020.pdf (last visited May 21, 2021). 4 Shreehari Paliath, Seven in 10 Indian prisoners are awaiting trial – one in three jail inmates is Dalit or Adivasi Scroll.in (2021), https://scroll.in/article/972458/seven-in-10-indian-prisoners-are-awaiting-trial-one-in-three- jail-inmates-is-dalit-or-adivasi (last visited May 21, 2021). 5 Bharti Jain, Government clarifies definition of 'family members' for employees | India News - Times of India The Times of India (2021), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/government-clarifies-definition-of-family- members-for- employees/articleshow/53325018.cms#:~:text=NEW%20DELHI%3A%20The%20Modi%20government,parent s%2C%20siblings%20or%20any%20other (last visited May 22, 2021). Relation with Family Members Once a person is incarcerated in normal circumstances the relation of that person with the family members can strain, the family may deny to accept the person as their own, they may cut their ties with the person. As these prisoners are generally the poor and the middle class for whom their name is of the highest value their goodwill is what matters is deteriorated, they are humiliated by their society and community people. As a result, the family is bound to strain ties with the prisoner. The strain is more prevalent in distant family relations and less to be seen among the very own. In cases of spouses or children the relation does get bitter as it is a lot of humiliation for the child as well as the spouse. Family members of an undertrial prisoner is harassed by the society as well as the police as they find themselves helpless. Even if a family tries to help it is stopped by different authorities abusing their powers as they are unaware of the rights bestowed upon them. Family of these undertrial prisoners can get into dangers for the same. After a time even the prisoners deny their family to meet them as this takes a toll on both the family and the undertrial prisoner. Owing to these actions the undertrial prisoners gets more distressed they have potentially no family to talk to for a long time and this affects their mental health, both inside and outside the prison they find it difficult to survive because nor the conditions inside the prison are such to survive nor outside the prison there is family support. Even Supreme Court had held that family members even though kept in surveillance should be always have a right to meet the undertrial prisoners and the legal practitioners have the same right.6 This right also inherently present in our constitution under Article 21 and 22(1). Also, in the present case where Covid-19 has been spread the visitation had stopped but it was continued through video calling and different procedures in Maharashtra jails. The visitation had also resumed after a while.7 In Ramanatha Nisha case Supreme court by giving the right to the undertrial prisoner meet his ailing wife in the hospital had kept up the standard of how important it was for prisoners to be in communication family friends.8 6 Sunil Batra v Delhi Administration, (2) 1980 SCR 557 (1979). 7 Faisal Tandel, Visitation for lawyers and family members to resume in Maharashtra prisons Hindustan Times (2021), https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/visitation-for-lawyers-and-family-members-to- resume-in-maharashtra-prisons-101612982467666.html (last visited May 21, 2021). 8 Madhav Khosla, Why Rahmath Nisha judgment about a prisoner & his wife is a celebration of right to privacy ThePrint (2021), https://theprint.in/opinion/why-rahmath-nisha-judgment-about-a-prisoner-his-wife-is-a- celebration-of-right-to-privacy/247485/ (last visited May 21, 2021). Family Tensions Family is the one social economical psychological bind of a member. When one is sent to the prison and is to await trial it gets difficult to make the same bond intact. Socially the society community all keep the families of the undertrial prisoner abandoned. They no more think them one of their own. This hugely impacts the image goodwill and mental health of the particular family. Economically if the sole bread owner or the head of the family is the undertrial prisoner, the family has no source of whatever income they used to have. Even the job of the person in the prison goes away giving rise to more tensions. Family and the undertrial prisoner both go through the rough patch of not having any income because of which neither legal assistance can be sought nor there is something to eat for the family. It was even held in one of the cases wherein the Supreme Court had said that pre- trial detention can cause grave injury to the detained and the family, the one detained may lose his job if has one and the family has to eventually bear the consequences for the same.9 Now even psychologically the family and the prisoner get challenged. They have to face the wrath of the relatives and the community and then the uncertainties they have in their minds with respect to freedom of the member. They have to go through a lot of mental trauma through that time as even though with what the society says the family has to keep on living its life for which they have to find jobs and everyday face the people who see them as offenders.
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