This past week, the Prison Statistics India Report for 2024 ['PSI Report'] was published by the National Crime Records Bureau ['NCRB]. I could not spot any massively interesting data points as such, especially if we read this Report together with the 2023 PSI Report. Indian prisons continue to be filled overcapacity, mostly with undertrial prisoners, who are usually young and poorly educated. While we do know that the prisons were collecting both religion and caste demographics, these indicators continue to be out of sight in these Reports. Economic profiles of prisoners are also not provided. If we did have that data provided in the Reports, one suspects it would further confirm that our prisoners are, disproportionately, coming from marginalised backgrounds.
The five-year charts in the 2024 Report show us that there has been a tapering of the prisoner population. The highs seen in the 2022 Report have, thankfully, not been witnessed again. Any positivity generated by this data is offset when we consider that that reasons for that tapering is not systemic improvement. One big reason are the efforts made in 2023 by the Supreme Court to push for release of prisoners through undertrial review committees. This is coupled by consistent decrease in prisoner population seen in Uttar Pradesh over the past couple of years. Anybody can see that these are not long-term solutions.
The 2024 Report is going to be interesting historically, as hereon the legal framework will no longer speak to the Criminal Procedure Code of 1973 but the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita of 2023. 1973 saw the introduction of a new Code with an impetus on ensuring speedy justice and provisions meant to reduce unjust undertrial incarceration. It went out in 2024 with an unpleasant legacy on these fronts. The new law has built upon the same rotten foundations but with some tweaks on aspects of arrest and bail, so it would be interesting to see what changes it brings on the ground.
A case in point will be the impact on default bail under what was Section 436-A of the 1973 Code, which has now become Section 479 of the 2023 Sanhita. This scheme of default bail under the old Code had enabled release of prisoners who had served half their prison term. The revised scheme allows for release on serving one-third of the sentence, provided it is a first-time offender (with some more caveats which we needn't elaborate here).
Implementation of 436-A is seen by some as a chokepoint resulting in unjust incarceration. However, the PSI data has consistently shown that this may not be the case, as there was hardly a sizeable number of the prison population eligible for release in the first place. The 2024 Report reaffirms this trend. As we have seen, 479 BNSS will change the eligibility criteria, potentially expanding the reach of the clause. It will be fascinating to see the impact it has. If the half-year's worth of data is anything to go by, the future of this species of default bail may not be very different from its past.
No comments:
Post a Comment