Denial of Justice to Poor

0
1031

It is a travesty of justice that many poor accused, are forced into long cellular servitude for little offenses’ because the bail procedure is beyond their meager means and trials don’t commence and even if they do, they never conclude.

Now, one reason why our legal and judicial system continually denies justice to the poor by keeping them for long years in pretrial detention is our highly unsatisfactory bail system. It suffers from a property oriented approach which seems to proceed on the erroneous assumption that risk of monetary loss is the only deterrent against fleeing from justice. The CrPC, even after its re-enactment, continues to adopt the same antiquated approach as the earlier Code enacted towards the end of the last century, and where an accused is to be released’ on his personal bond, it insists that the bond should contain a monetary obligation requiring the accused to pay a sum of money in case he fails to appear at the trial. Moreover, as if this were not sufficient deterrent to the poor the courts mechanically and as a matter of course insist that the accused should produce sureties who will stand bail for him and these sureties must again establish their solvency to be able to pay up the amount of the bail in case the accused fails to appear to answer the charge. This system of bails operates very harshly against the poor and it is only the non-poor who are able to take advantage of it by getting themselves released on bail.

The poor find it difficult to furnish bail even without sureties because very often the amount of the bail fixed by the courts is so unrealistically excessive that in a majority of cases the poor are unable to satisfy the police or the Magistrate about their solvency for the amount of the bail and where the bail is with sureties, as is usually the case, it becomes an almost impossible task for the poor to find persons sufficiently solvent to stand as sure-ties. The result is that either they are fleeced by the police and revenue officials or by touts and professional sureties and sometimes they have even to incur debts for securing their release or, being unable to obtain release, they have to remain in jail until such time as the court is able to take up their cases for trial, leading to grave consequences, namely, (1) though presumed innocent, they are subjected to psychological and physical privations of jail life, (2) they are prevented from contributing to the preparation of their defense and (3) they lose their job, if they have one, and are deprived of an opportunity to work to support themselves and their family members with the result that the burden of their detention almost invariably falls heavily on the innocent members of the family. It is here that the poor find our legal and judicial system oppressive and heavily weighed against them and a feeling of frustration and despair occurs upon them as they find that they are helplessly in a position of inequality with the non-poor.

Moreover, the bail system causes discrimination against the poor since the poor would not be able to furnish bail on account of their poverty while the wealthier persons otherwise similarly situate would be able to secure their freedom because they can afford to furnish bail. This discrimination arises even if the amount of the bail as fixed by the Magistrate is not high, for a large majority of those who are brought before the Courts in criminal cases are so poor that they would find it difficult to furnish bail even in a small amount.

The discriminatory nature of the bail system becomes all the more acute by reason of the mechanical way in which it is customarily operated. It is no doubt true that theoretically the Magistrate has broad discretion in fixing the amount of bail but in practice it seems that the amount of bail depends almost always on the seriousness of the offense. It is fixed according to a schedule related to the nature of the charge. Little weight is given either to the probability that the accused will attempt to flee before his trial or to his individual financial circumstances, the very factors which seem most relevant if the purpose of bail is to assure the appearance of the accused at the trial. The result of ignoring these factors and fixing the amount of bail mechanically having regard only to the seriousness of the offense is to discriminate against the poor who are not in the same position as the rich as regards capacity to furnish bail. The Courts by ignoring the differential capacity of the rich and the poor to furnish bail and treating them equally produce inequality between the rich and the poor; the rich who is charged with the same offense in the same circumstances is able to secure his release while the poor is unable to do so on account of his poverty. These are some of the major defects in the bail system as it is operated today.

The bail system, as it operates today, is a source of great hardship to the poor and if we really want to eliminate the evil effects of poverty and assure a fair and just treatment to the poor in the administration of justice, it is imperative that the bail system should be thoroughly reformed so that it should be possible for the poor, as easily as the rich, to obtain pretrial release without jeopardizing the interest of justice.

About the Author

kushKush Kalra

Kush is a practicing lawyer at Delhi High Court. He graduated from Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab, India in 2012 and has authored a book titled – Be Your Own Lawyer.

Leave a Reply