Legal Aid System In Prisons Ineffective; Many Languish In Jails Because Of This : Advocate Sudha Bharadwaj

Civil rights lawyer and activist Sudha Bharadwaj in a recent webinar spoke about the lack of effective legal aid system in prisons. Ms.Bharadwaj, who spent as undertrial in the Bhima Koregaon case for over three years before she was granted bail by the Bombay High Court in December 2021, recounted her experiences in prison. She gave a direct account of the difficulties faced by several prisoners, especially those hailing from marginalised sections, in availing legal remedies. She also said that during her custody period she personally wrote hundreds of bail applications for fellow prisoners."When I was moved to Byculla, the news went around that Aunty is a lawyer and she is very discreet, she does not spread any gossip, you can go and discuss your chargesheet and she will make applications for you and make them in duplicate for you in Hindi. And I was soon flooded with many, many requests", she said.She was speaking on the Conditions of Prisoners in Indian Prisons in a webinar organised by All India Lawyers Association for Justice (AILAJ).Excerpts :No definition of political prisoner"There is no definition of a political prisoner in most states. The only state I know with a definition is West Bengal. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, though it is not written into the rules or the jail manual, political prisoners in practice are treated as such. So in all other states, you are a criminal and not a political prisoner. A person becomes a political prisoner not by definition in the jail manual but by the perception of the society outside. In the same Yerawada jail when Gandhiji used to be there, he was allowed to have long meetings with Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel and the British would allow them. That speaks for how important they thought or how afraid of the public sentiment they were that they permitted such a thing. We cannot even imagine that. Different people have different definitions of political prisoners. Many people who may be called political prisoners would have fallen in the 'anti-national' category, I think. So many sedition cases were put during the POSCO moment, the Sterlite movement, 48,000 such cases were put on the farmers recently. To me, all of them would be political prisoners because it is in the course of a movement, an effort. We have to strengthen the human rights organisation, the lawyers organisation. The concept of political prisoners in the British times was that there were A class prisoners and B class prisoners and that was on the basis of your status. I would not like to be treated differently from someone who is sleeping next to me because I have a different annual income. I would like to have the same rights of reading newspapers, meeting relatives and friends, to discuss with lawyers. But I would not like an income or any other kind of hierarchy or occupational wise segregation among the prisoners", activist-lawyer Sudh Bhardwaj has said.Ineffective legal aid in prisons"When I came to prison (in connection with the Bhima Koregaon incident), I became quickly aware that the lack of legal aid is not only ineffective but criminal. Then you realise how many people are actually languishing in jail because of this. What is the degree of miscarriage of justice which is possible. I am going to talk about the condition of legal aid in prisons. If you look at Articles 21 and 39A, it is the task and duty of the State to provide effective legal aid. When I was in Yerwada, we were in a single cell as we were considered too dangerous to be surrounded by other people; it is only when we would travel to the court in a van that I would get a chance to hear people's stories. When I was moved to Byculla, the news went around that Aunty is a lawyer and she is very discreet, she does not spread any gossip, you can go and discuss your chargesheet and she will make applications for you and make them in duplicate for you in Hindi. And I was soon flooded with many, many requests. According to the present statistics that we have, around 67% of the women prisoners are undertrials. Among these also, around 37% of all women are in murder cases. Women involved in murder cases particularly are very soon abandoned and if you have murdered your husband or mother-in-law, then you will be abandoned from both sides. Women like this are completely dependent on legal aid, they don't have money, they don't have any family to come and meet them, they have nobody to follow up with the lawyer on the outside, so it is basically legal aid or nothing. 302 (IPC) could result in life imprisonment or even a death sentence. It is really a life and death situation for them to get a good legal aid lawyer. My period in Byculla also coincided with Covid that really exacerbated the problems of the prisoners regarding legal aid even more. But somethings seem to be endemic. I met numerous women who had filed vakalatnamahs but did not know the name of their lawyers or their mobile numbers or the address of the lawyer....

Legal Aid System In Prisons Ineffective; Many Languish In Jails Because Of This : Advocate Sudha Bharadwaj

Mehal Jain

"I think that all of us must collectively fight for the stronger legal aid system. Without that, Article 21 and 39A do not exist for people in the jails"

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