India: Long-term prisoners still on trial to get bail ahead of Constitution Day

Ahead of Constitution Day, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has announced that prisoners who are on trial for non-serious crimes and have at least served a third of their possible sentence will be granted bail on the occasion. The move has been made to tackle the long backlogs as millions of cases remain pending in the courts.

According to the government statistics from early 2024, over 134,799 individuals are held in detention awaiting trial due to the slow judicial proceedings, while 11,448 of them remain in prison without a sentence for over five years.

Home Minister Amit Shah has said that prisoners who are eligible will be given bail before the national Constitution Day on November 26. However, there is no information on how many detainees will be given bail.

Shah is determined for India to have a “scientific and speedy” justice system.

“It is our effort that before Constitution Day, there should not be a single prisoner in the country's jails who has served one-third of his sentence and has not yet got justice,” Shah said in a speech to police officers on Tuesday (Nov.19), said an AFP report.

"If a trial is not going on after a certain period then... the jail officer will have to present the bail process inthe court," he said.

He added that those accused of serious crimes are not eligible for bail, including those booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which allows detention for an indefinite period without a trial.

The Supreme Court of India warned last year that victims may become “disillusioned when the legal process moves at a snail's pace”, with some trials taking as much as 65 years, as per the AFP report.

The country has seen little investment in digital systems for court hearings. The ratio of judges also remains poor at just 21 per million population, slowing the pace of justice delivery.

(With inputs from agencies)