Hyderabad: Poor languishing in jails without legal remedy

Hyderabad: Let a hundred culprits escape, but, one innocent should not be punished. This is the guiding principle of rule of law. However, in reality, this is not the case. Startling facts have come to the fore in a Right to Information (RTI) filed by a city-based NGO called 'Youth for Anti-Corruption'(YAC).

The NGO studied the status of under-trials across the country. Shocking facts were revealed in a reply by the government for an RTI filed by the NGO member Nallapu Manideep.

"Lakhs of innocent youth are languishing in jails across the country in pursuit of justice for years," said, Founder of YAC, Rajendra Palnati.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reply to an RTI filed by Manideep it was revealed that over three lakh cases are in various stages of trials, of which 61,359 have been acquitted as of NCRB data till December 2019. Most of the undertrials are poor and hail from backward sections of the society and are in prison for over a year.

It was also revealed that most of the poor undertrials had to wait for a period ranging from three months to two years for bail. These undertrials are languishing in jail with lack of legal awareness, dearth of persons to secure surety for them, poverty among other factors. YAC took a serious note of this trend and wanted the courts of laws to take cognizance of this issue as a breach of human rights and take up it a suo-moto.

YAC said that its legal team is planning to file public interest litigation (PIL) against the trend and take up the issue for its speedy redressal and ensure justice for downtrodden and poor languishing in jails without any judicial remedy.