PROLONGED STAY OF WOMEN IN JAILS
RAJYA SABHA
The Rajya Sabha was
told that there were 9089 women prisoners including foreign women
prisoners in jails in the country at the end of the year 2000.
Slow process of trial is one of the major factors for prolonged
stay of women in jails. The intervention made to improve the situation
in brief are as under:
The Code of Criminal
Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 1994 introduced in the Rajya Sabha
on 9th May, 1994 contains, inter-alia, a proposal to
insert a new section namely; section 438 A in the code of Criminal
Procedure, 1973 to provide that where an under-trial prisoner
other than the one accused of an offence for which death has been
prescribed as one of the punishments, has been under detention
for a period extending to one-half of the maximum period of imprisonment
provided for the alleged offence, he should be released on personal
bond, with or without sureties. It is also proposed to provide
that in no case will an under trial prisoner be detained beyond
the maximum period of imprisonment for which he can be convicted
for the alleged offence.
The Minister
of State for Home, Shri I.D. Swami said the Central Government
have also sanctioned a scheme of setting up 1734 Fast Track Courts
for disposing off long pending cases and other cases involved
under trials on priority. The Chief Justice of India, wrote a
letter on the 29th November, 1999 to all the Chief
Justices of the High Courts suggesting that every Chief Metropolitan
Magistrate or the Chief Judicial Magistrate of the area, in which
a District jails falls, may hold his court once or twice in a
month in the jail to take up the cases of those under trial prisoners
who are involved in petty offences.
He said State
Governments construct jails including exclusive jails for women
prisoners according to their requirements and resources. Separate
jails for women exist in Andhra Pradesh (Hyderabad and Rajamundary),
Bihar (Bhagalpur), Kerala (Thriuvananthapuram), Orissa (Sambalpur),
Punjab (Lundhiana), Rajasthan (Jaipur), Sikkim (Gangtok), Tamil
Nadu (Trichy and Vellor), Tripura (Agartala), Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow),
West Bengal (Purulia) and Delhi. Where separate jails are not
available for women prisoners, separate enclosures are provided
for them.
