RTI & Jails in UP : Overcrowded Jails : Those having completed their term still languishing in jails

http://www.thesundayindian.com/article.php?article_id=10461

Uttar Pradesh: Overcrowded Jails

Prisons in U.P. burst at the seams

Those having completed their term still languishing in jails

PUJA AWASTHI | December 5, 2010 14:04

Prisoners who have long completed their terms but have not been
released as yet form a considerable chunk of the total prisoners in
Uttar Pradesh's jails. This is one of the reasons behind overcrowding
of the state's jails, reveals an RTI query filed by Lucknow based
activist Urvashi Sharma.

Sharma, on October 4, 2009, had asked for the following information: A
list of all the jails in UP with their designated capacity and the
actual number of prisoners housed in each jail; jail-wise lists of the
names of all convicts who are serving time in spite of having
completed their terms; and details of the steps taken by the state
government in the last five years to scrutinise the status of all the
prisoners in UP jails, apart from certain other details.

The reply from the Jail Administration and Reforms Services was enough
to give Sharma a shock as she came to know that against the designated
capacity of 42,176 inmates, UP's 62 jails actually had 83,805
prisoners. According to a National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) report
on prisons, 2008, the state's jails have 191.6 per cent occupancy,
second only to Chattisgarh where the jail occupancy is 215.2 per cent.
According to the report, only 32 per cent of all the inmates in
India's jails are convicts while a whopping 67 per cent of them are
undertrials. There is just one jail official per eight inmates.

Two appeals and a rejoinder later, Sharma received information from
only two jails— Meerut and Ghaziabad— that two prisoners, one male and
one female, were languishing in Ghaziabad jail even after completion
of their terms. As for the query about the scrutiny of the prisoners
the response was "Nil". "It is indeed ironical that the department
meant to bring reforms in jails has not even scrutinised the status
of the prisoners during the last five years. I am writing to the CM
and the Governor to take action and ensure that either the department
should prove worthy of its name or it should drop the words
'administration and reforms' from its name," says Sharma.

Earlier this year, Law Minister Veerappa Moily launched a drive for
the speedy conclusion of the cases of undertrials and to ensure their
release. Till July this year, UP had topped the list in that mission
by releasing 52,843 undertrials and settling the cases of 4,203 more.
But certainly more steps are needed in this direction.

--
Urvashi Sharma

RTI Helpmail( Web Based )
aishwaryaj2010@gmail.com

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8081898081 ( 8 A.M. to 10 P.M. )