Srinagar: The State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has pulled up the state government for denying prisoners the ‘fundamental right to speedy trial’, lamenting that ‘unjustifiable and avoidable’ time-lag is consumed in trial and recoding of evidences.
The SHRC has recommended that the government examine the feasibility of providing a single separate cell to arrange for transport and security for taking prisoners to the courts.
In its annual report, the SHRC has observed that some of the detainees it spoke to at the Kathua and Udhampur District Jails have been in the prisons for years together primarily as their cases are pending for the reasons that they are either not being taken to courts or, if produced before the judges, disposal of their cases is inordinately delayed due to protraction of proceedings and inapt dealing of procedure.
“There are many among the inmates of this jail (District Kathua Jail) who share the common grievance with other inmates lodged in other jails of the state. It may be pointed out that in the process fundamental right of speedy trial of the prisoners is violated for one or the other reason,†the SHRC says.
According to the SHRC report, the Superintendent of the District Kathua Jail while acknowledging that the prisoners are not being taken to courts regularly and the delay in their cases is for non-availability of transportation and security personnel to be provided by respective district police lines where the trial courts are located, submits that on his part he is regularly in touch with district police authorities on phone and also corresponding on the subject.
The human rights body has recommended that to avoid the avoidable delays of overstayal in the prisons on the one hand viable mechanism needs to be evolved and on other hand things are to be managed astutely while providing for and arranging transport / security in taking the undertrial prisoners to courts in particular outside Kathua or Udhampur and vice versa.
Instead of asking each and every district police line to arrange for transport/security to take the prisoners to the concerned respective courts in this state, the SHRC says, the government can examine the feasibility of providing a single separate cell to arrange for transport and security for taking prisoners to the courts in far flung areas in Pulwama, Billawar, Srinagar, Jammu, Kulgam, Tral, Shopian, etc and lodging back prisoners in the jail at Ramban, Kathua or Udhampur. “This job can be given to the prison authorities headed by Director General Prisons. Providing of unified centralized agency for the purpose would be economical, time saving and efficient,†the SHRC says.
