The report that a woman who was granted bail 19 years ago was finally released this week after her son, born in jail, paid the requisite money was both chilling and heart-warming. While it underlined the cold inhumanity of the legal system, it also showed how a child grew to manhood to earn the sum needed by his mother to be free. It can be imagined how the boy, as he watched his mother spend her time along with him behind bars, may have silently vowed to pay her “debt” to an insensitive system. It goes without saying that while the mother must be inordinately proud of her son, those in the jail and outside who witnessed her plight and reprieve must hang their heads in shame.
Moved by her case, the Allahabad high court has now directed jail officials of Uttar Pradesh to provide a list of convicts and undertrials who have been granted bail but not released. Perhaps the Supreme Court should call for a similar list for the entire country since, according to official figures, undertrials account for 70 per cent of the jail inmates in India. Most of them suffer prolonged incarceration even for petty criminal offences either because they are not aware of their legal rights or are not in a position to furnish bonds and get released on bail.
According to an evolving jurisprudence, punishment is only the secondary purpose of a jail, the primary one being to reform the criminals. In India, however, the supposedly secondary objective is usually the main and the only one. No wonder that the Supreme Court has observed that “the laxity with which we throw citizens into prison reflects our lack of appreciation for the tribulation of incarceration; the callousness with which we leave them there reflects our lack of deference for humanity”. Clearly, a thorough overhaul of the system is the need of the hour.
