Tihar convicts sentenced to wait
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/convicts-wait-years-at-end-for-justice/18020-3.html
New Delhi: Convicts are supposed to have the right to appeal, but for lakhs of prisoners in the country years and years go by before a court takes up their case.
The CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team has names of prisoners who have been in Delhi's Tihar Jail from five to 15 years and not yet had the chance to make even their first appeal.
"Where a person has completed his full sentence or a substantial period of it, I submit this fundamental right has been violated," says advocate Manish Khanna.
Hariprakash was admitted to Tihar in 1989 and has already spent 17 of his 20-year sentence, but his first appeal is till pending.
Hariprakash is not alone. Mohd Irshad was condemned to 11 years imprisonment; he appealed but has been waiting for nine years for his case to be heard.
"You have this whole system comprising the trial court, the High Court, the Supreme Court, but your appeals are taking so long that the
appeals are becoming meaningless," says Mandeep Tiwana of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI).
"And many times it happens during the pendency of their appeals that their sentence time has expired and then it just becomes meaningless," adds Tiwana.
Even as the defendants suffer because of court delays, a fresh cases arrive, increasing the backlog.
Back in 1987, the Law Commission had said that the number of judges should be increased from 10 to 50 per million. After almost two decades, little has been done.
The Tihar Jail has 11,000 prisoners, 2,500 of whom have served most of their sentence without getting their first appeal heard in court.
Tihar Jail authorities accept the facts, but only off camera. But then, this is merely where the prisoners are housed.
The almost criminal delays are happening in court, and nothing is being done to set things right.
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"Ours is a battle not for wealth or for power.
It is a battle for freedom. It is a battle for the reclamation of human personality."
- Dr BR Ambedkar
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