JAILS AND COURTS IN INDIA OVERFLOWING DUE TO A LACK OF JUDGES

National Public Radio

28 September 2000

Anchor: Bob Edwards

Reproting: Michael Sullivan

BOB EDWARDS, host:

There are more than 25 million court cases pending in India. More than half are criminal cases. And many people awaiting trial have spent decades behind bars without ever being convicted of a crime. NPR's Michael Sullivan reports from New Delhi.

MICHAEL SULLIVAN reporting:

Santo Sananda Avaduta(ph) is a 66-year-old monk in saffron robes, Coke-bottle glasses and a long, gray beard. He sleeps on a thin blanket on the concrete floor of a one-room, third-floor walk-up. Santo Sananda, who used to edit his order's newspaper, has been on trial for nearly 25 years. He and three others are accused of murder but Santo Sananda says they are all innocent victims of a political vendetta. But he's having a hard proving it in court.

Brother SANTO SANANDA AVADUTA: Three judges have died during the course of these 25 years you see and five lawyers have died who are involved in the trial. And among these five lawyers, four lawyers were all men lawyers. They're died ...(unintelligible) win this case.

SULLIVAN: Santo Sananda spent 12 years in jail before the supreme court ordered his release on bail in 1986. He says he and co-accused were framed and, in fact, two other men have confessed to the crime. No matter. His trial drags on, 600 court appearances and counting.

Brother AVADUTA: The Indian legal system is very tardy. And from this system justice is very difficult, extremely difficult, this I can say. Very expensive and a man becomes fed up with the judicial process.

SULLIVAN: Ravi Nair, executive director of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, says Santo Sananda's predicament is not unusual.

Mr. RAVI NAIR (South Asia's Human Rights Documentation Centre): This is just one of the many hundreds of thousands of cases of this kind across the length and breadth of India. Dickens' writing in the last century said, 'Show me your courts and show me your jails and I will tell you the state of your society.' All you have to look at the Indian courts and Indian jails to understand that this society is a very sick society.

SULLIVAN: The Patiala Courts(ph) are just across the street from New Delhi's India Gate. Patiala is just one of several courts around the city. Dozens of notaries sit outside the chambers typing up bail applications for the accused. Business is good. There are 40 courtrooms here. Each judge, in theory, is expected to squeeze in as many as 50 cases per day. This, of course, is impossible and this, say, reform advocates is the crux of the problem. Too few judges for too many cases making postponements and adjournments inevitable, even routine. There are 10 judges for every 1 million people in India. In the US there are 50 per million. Lawyer Sithoc Luthra(ph) argues cases in New Delhi's high court.

Mr. SITHOC LUTHRA (Lawyer): We are running short of manpower. We have a population that is increasing. Litigation is increasing and the court system, which needed to cope with this load of litigation is just not being able to cope.

SULLIVAN: As a result, many of the accused, or undertrials as they're called, spend years in prison before their cases are even heard let along decided. Twenty-four-year-old Arnut Comar(ph), accused of robbery and attempted murder, spent three years in Delhi's notorious Tihar jail before making bail last week.

Mr. ARNUT COMAR: (Foreign language spoken)

SULLIVAN: 'The system is very bad. If I'd gone to college for the last three years, I could have learned something,' Comar says. 'Instead, the only thing I learned was how to be a criminal.'

Government figures show that nearly 75 percent of the prison population is made up of so-called undertrials. Many of these people, by the government's own admission, are in jail simply because they are too poor to make bail. Ravi Nair of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre says migrant laborers who sneak on to trains without paying are often kept in jail for years unable to come up with as little as 500 rupees, a little over $ 10, to bail themselves out.

Mr. RAVI [NAIR]: Five hundred rupees is the amount that this individual would be earning in a whole season of hard work in the fields in Punjab. So how is he going to do that? So he rots in jail until somebody then sees the complete inefficiency of having him there and then lets him off.

SULLIVAN: Both the Law Commission of India and the supreme court have recommended a series of steps for dealing with the problem. More judges, and more courts to house them, are at the top of the list, simplifying bail for the poor and indigent is another recommendation. But so far the government has been slow to respond. Santo Sananda Avaduta, who's been waiting 25 years for justice, says he's confident it will come someday.

Brother AVADUTA: We know that we are right and we are not guilty. And ultimately, righteousness gets the victory. We have abiding faith in this conviction.

SULLIVAN: Faith he may have but time is another matter. Santo Sananda's lawyer says his case will take at least another 8 to 10 years to resolve. He's hoping the monk lives long enough to see it end. Michael Sullivan, NPR News.