Abstract
Bail is the basic right for a prisoners where it ensures that they are not detained unnecessarily unless of their background. In India we have seen a number of authorities misusing of power due to biasness, arbitration, etc where it leads to the unsystematic way of solving the problems/crimes or even the trials we may say. In some cases, due to the rich families background, high profile, etc of the accused, they got bail while the poor and helpless people are still detained. The main desire of this paper is not a stipulation that the underprivileged people must also get bail like how the high profile accused got bail but to show that exonerations are really important before granting a bail to the accused and the law must also strictly abide to all the citizens despite of their backgrounds so that a fair and conclusive trial must be done in order to prevail justice in India. Now it is the crucial time to exploit all this inequity and mend the rights of the prisoners. Beyond everything the prisoners must also get their fundamental rights like Article 21(right to life and personal liberty) and strengthen legal system in India.
Introduction: Need for Progressive Bail Reforms
“Supreme Court is pressing the need for bringing reforms due to tedious bail processes”. This is the tagline of a recent case, in January, where supreme court once again has highlighted the issues with current bail laws in India. One of judges, Justice Kaul, stated that if all the case are just fought on basis of bails and government does not thinks out of the box and restrict itself from fighting every case on bail, it would take courts 300 to 700 years to clear up the backlog of cases lying in the courts.
Justice Kishan Kaul explained how every case of bail is being challenges by the other party which goes on till the case reaches Supreme Court, this consumes a lot of time.
Increase in backlog cases is just a small problem within the bail laws in India, the major argument still is how liberty has been affected by current bail laws and reforms are needed to mitigate the ill-effects of currently existing bail laws in India.
How do we re-imagine a law? With respect to bail law there is a need to first re-examine the exact nature of what is causing this large-scale incarceration with respect to undertrials due to such tedious bail reforms. This assessment needs to be based on multiple parameters and we have no real empirical evidence on how each of these impacts the issue. What proportion of undertrials are applying for bail? What proportion of bail applications are accepted or rejected, and on what grounds? Is bail compliance a far bigger problem than denial of bail? These are some fundamental empirical questions which need answers. An effective bail law must be based on the correlation of these answers with variables such as the demographics of undertrials, category of offences and timelines for bail, and also address socio-economic and structural barriers.
There is a serious need to act on the Supreme Court’s recommendation that India needs a comprehensive bail legislation and suggestions can be taken from UK Bail Act. Around 70% of the prison population is awaiting trial, the most of whom are poor and hence unable to secure monetary bail. The Supreme Court took note of the BNSS’s continuing colonial prejudices- police are fast to arrest individuals, which puts poor and uneducated people at a great disadvantage because they are unable to take advantage of the legal system, unlike those with education, money, and power. Only progressive bail reform can help to mitigate this disparity. Let’s see how
The term Bail has been defined in Black Law Dictionary as a security form, required by court to make sure that the person will be released on a condition that he/she must appear before the court in future whenever called upon. In the case of Sanjay Chandra vs CBI, the court stated the object of bail is neither to act as a punitive measure or a preventive measure but to ensure attendance of the person (accused) and a reasonable amount is to be imposed as a condition for release. But Indian Bail law is not able to fulfill this object without committing gross human rights violations which take place in form of ‘conducting investigations’ and along with that there are several system failures.