Government of India Ministry of Home Affairs Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. †2723 TO BE ANSWERED ON THE 19TH FEBRUARY, 2014/MAGHA 30, 1935 (SAKA)

UNDERTRIALS IN JAILS

†2723. DR. PRABHA THAKUR:

Will the Minister of HOME AFFAIRS be pleased to state:

(a) the number of accused persons who are under arrest as criminals and are in different jails of various States for the last seven years and the State-wise details thereof;

(b) whether most of the undertrial accused persons are confined in jails for many years due to not getting bail or other different reasons if so, the details of those reason;

(c) whether Government would consider to make amendment in the law for releasing of such undertrial accused persons who are in police confinement for more than one year, on some other ground even after rejection of their bail; and

(d) if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor?

ANSWER

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS (SHRI R.P.N SINGH)

(a): “Prisons” is a State subject as per entry 4 of List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India. Therefore, the administration and management of prisons is primarily the responsibility of the State Governments. Data is available with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for undertrials in jail for more than 5 years and at the end of 2012, there were 2028 undertrial prisoners(UTPs) lodged in jails of India. A State/UT wise data is annexed.

(b) to (d): A comprehensive advisory dated 17th July 2009 has been issued by the Government of India on “Prison Administration”, which provides for steps to be taken by the States/UTs for providing free legal aid to undertrials, setting up of Lok Adalats/Special courts in prisons for expediting review of cases of undertrials. Another advisory regarding use of section 436A of the Cr.P.C to reduce overcrowding of prisons has also been issued to States/UTs on 17.1.2013 entailing that the States/UTs take the following actions-

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(i) To constitute a Review Committee in every district with the District Judge as Chairman, and the District Magistrate and District SP as members to meet every three months and review the cases of UTPs.

(ii) The Jail Superintendent should conduct a survey of all cases where the UTPs have completed more than one-fourth of the maximum sentence. He should prepare a survey list and send the same to the District Legal Service Authority (DLSA) as well as the UT Review Committee.

(iii) The Prison authorities may educate undertrial prisoners on their rights to bail.

(iv) Provision of legal aid – to be provided through empanelled lawyers of DLSA to cases presented for release on bail and reduction of bail amount.

(v) The list of UTPs should be made available to the non-official visitors as well as District Magistrates/Judges who conduct periodic inspections of the jails.

(vi) Home Department may also develop management information system to ascertain the progress made jail-wise in this regard.

***** ANNEXURE Annexure referred in reply to part (a) of Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 2723 for answer on 19.2.2014

S.N. Name of State/UT Number of undertrial prisoners lodged in jails for more than 5 years 1 Andhra Pradesh 2 2 Arunachal Pradesh 0 3 Assam 39 4 Bihar 249 5 Chhattisgarh 29 6 Goa 4 7 Gujarat 56 8 Haryana 13 9 Himachal Pradesh 0 10 Jammu & Kashmir 72 11 Jharkhand 77 12 Karnataka 51 13 Kerala 0 14 Madhya Pradesh 25 15 Maharashtra 61 16 Manipur 11 17 Meghalaya 15 18 Mizoram 0 19 Nagaland 1 20 Odisha 44 21 Punjab 317 22 Rajasthan 117 23 Sikkim 0 24 Tamil Nadu 139 25 Tripura 1 26 Uttar Pradesh 324 27 Uttarakhand 2 28 West Bengal 197 29 A & N Islands 0 30 Chandigarh 2 31 D & N Haveli 0 32 Daman & Diu 0 33 Delhi 180 34 Lakshadweep 0 35 Puducherry 0 Total 2028 ***** ANNEXURE Annexure referred in reply to part (a) of Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 2723 for answer on 19.2.2014