Under trial prisoners in India a socio legal study with special reference to state of Haryana

Abstract

Under-Trial Prisoners are those people, who are facing trial in any court and during the trial are kept in judicial custody in Prison. As per NCRB data, the total number of convicted prisoners have been decreased from 34.05% in 2011 to 29.93% in 2018, having decreased by 4.12% during last 8 years. However, number of under-trial prisoners has increased from 64.07% in 2011 to 69.42%, have been increased by 5.35% during last 8 years. Same position is prevailing in Haryana jails, in 2017 under-trials in Haryana jail were 59.9% while conviction ratio was 40.1%. In 2018 the ratio of under-trial prisoners was 63.7% in comparison to the convict s ratio of 36.3%. In India, Under-Trials occupancy ratio in the Prisons is considerably higher than that of convicted Prisoners, which is almost double and it is increasing every year, despite efforts making by Government i.e. amendment in Prison Manual, Prison Act, Criminal Procedure Code etc., and Apex Court s direction in Ex. Captain Harish Uppal case, Hussainara Khatoon case, Abdul Rehman Antulay case etc. Due to increasing of the population or Over-use of imprisonment leads to overcrowded, inhumane and degrading conditions of detenues and they have to face many other problems. Present study has covered all aspects of under-trial prisoners including their personal information, case profile, Prison facility, Advocate experience and effect of stay in Prison on their life, also analysis of scheme and policy regarding reforms and rehabilitation of under-trial prisoners in Haryana. In order to achieve the objectives, doctrinal and non-doctrinal methods of research have been adopted. Various books articles, Supreme Court judgments and Law Commission Reports have also been referred as Secondary Sources of data. newline