New Delhi: A Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs on Thursday expressed serious concern over the issue of overcrowding in jails and delayed justice leading to a series of consequences for both the prisoners and the criminal justice system as a whole. The committee recommended that prisoners from overcrowded jails may be transferred to other jails with vacant cells in the same state or others by signing MoUs to that effect. This kind of an arrangement can be mutual in nature between the states signing the MoU, the committee said in its 245th report presented in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
The committee in its report said that Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of undertrial prisoners. Over 21.21 per cent of the country's undertrials are in the jails of Uttar Pradesh. However, only 2.33 per cent of the 30,415 prisoners eligible for bail under Section 436-A were released from jails. Delhi has the highest percentage of undertrial prisoners which is 91 per cent of the total prisoners. As per the information provided by the government of NCT of Delhi, 11,894 prisoners had completed half of the maximum punishment that may be awarded for the offence committed by them.
Out of these, 10,145 prisoners were recommended by the Under Trial Review Committee (UTRC) for granting bail. However, only 1,696 of the prisoners were released, which is very low, the committee stated in its report.
Also read: Jails across country overcrowded, prisoner count exceeds capacity: MHA in Lok Sabha
The problem of overcrowding in Indian prisons is mostly because of a very large number of undertrial prisoners' population. Various measures to counter the problem of overcrowding have been taken, at the Central, State, and UT government levels. Despite such measures, the national average occupancy rate in prisons across the country is still 130.2 per cent, with 77.1 per cent of all the prisoners in the country being undertrials.
“The overcrowding in Indian prisons has long plagued the country's Criminal Justice System,” it said. The Committee was informed by the Ministry of Home Affairs that the government of India has taken many steps to address the issue of overcrowding in prisons such as inserting Section 436A in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC); plea bargaining, making legal provisions of Legal Services Authority Act for providing free legal aid, conducting awareness camps through National Legal Services Authority (NALSA).
Despite these steps, the total number of inmates in India is 5,54,034 against the prison capacity of 4,25,609. The National Average Occupancy Rate in prisons across the country is 130.2 per cent. The states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana together make up more than 50 per cent of the total prison population in the country. Furthermore, the state of Uttarakhand has reported the highest occupancy rate of 185 per cent.
