There's a striking line in the Neelothi song from the recent hit film Sirai (Prison) -- Padacha saamy ketkadhadhaiyum, padicha saamy kettadhe! (The learned man listened to what even the god who created me did not listen to...)
That sums up the entire film.
An armed reserve head constable Kathiravan (Vikram Prabhu) escorts an undertrial prisoner, Abdul Rauf (LK Akshay Kumar), from Vellore jail to a Sivagangai court.
In a gripping series of events that unfold during the transit, Abdul finally gets to be heard by the rigid yet concerned police officer Kathiravan.
Abdul's many casual revelations to him highlight the existing lacunae in the legal system, institutions and police procedures.
How Kathiravan turns into a messiah for the unheard Abdul and changes his fortunes forever is indeed a compelling watch, but the film's greater achievement is the 'reality' that it exposes about the life of an undertrial.
A report by the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) on the functioning of the Under Trial Review Committees (July to September 2025) highlights that 75.54 per cent of prisoners in Indian jails are undertrials.
"States like Bihar (87 per cent) and Nagaland (86 per cent) and Union territories including Dadra & Nagar Haveli (100 per cent), Daman and Diu (100 per cent) and Jammu & Kashmir (96.7 per cent) reported a high proportion of under-trial prisoners," the report states.
It also adds that 68.69 per cent of prisoners in Tamil Nadu prisons are undertrials.
The Justice Amitava Roy Committee on Prison Reforms submitted a report in 2022, which highlighted that most prisons are full of undertrials, and their numbers are highly disproportionate in comparison to the number of convicts.
The Committee pressed for the setting up of special fast-track courts to deal with petty offences and cases pending for five years or more. It also recommended that High Courts should direct District and Sessions Court judges to regularly monitor the progress of pending cases.
Article 21 of the Indian Constitution mandates a speedy trial for a person lodged in jail. Article 22 states that an arrested individual should be informed of the reasons for the arrest and highlights that he/she has the right to consult and be defended by a lawyer of their choice.
Article 39A ensures free legal aid to those unable to afford legal representation.
Section 479 (1) of the BNSS provides that when a person has undergone detention for a period extending up to one-half of the maximum period of imprisonment specified for offence under the law, during the period of investigation, inquiry or trial for an offence under any law (not being an offence for which the punishment of death or life imprisonment has been specified as one of the punishments under the concerned law), he shall be released by the court on bail.
The section also specifies that a first-time offender can be released on bond by the court if he has undergone detention for a period extending up to one-third of the maximum period of imprisonment specified for such offences under that law.
Section 479(3) provides that the superintendent of the jail where the accused person is detained, on completion of one-half or one-third of the period mentioned in sub-section (1) of BNSS, as the case may be, shall forthwith make an application in writing to the court for the release of the person on bail.
E-prisons software, a prison management app integrated with an Interoperable Criminal Justice System, provides data access on prisoners to jail authorities to help them spot individuals whose cases are due for consideration by the Under Trial Review Committee.
The Constitution, legislation, committee reports and technology all lay down that no prisoner should suffer being unrepresented, but do the 65.62 per cent of undertrials (NCRB, 2022) who are illiterate or have received formal education only till Class 10 know it?
After being critically acclaimed during its theatrical run, Sirai has been embraced by the audience on the ZEE5 platform too, setting a record by becoming the fastest film to get to 150+ million streaming minutes, in a span of five days within its OTT release.
The film throws light on the many gaps that exist between the legal system and the undertrials. But, while there was a Kathiravan to bridge that gap for Abdul on screen, who do the 4,04,168 undertrials have in reality?
