Nearly 70 Percent of Jail Inmates in India are Undertrials

The highest number of undertrial prisoners are in Uttar Pradesh (62,669).

In Jammu & Kashmir, more than half of the undertrial prisoners have been in detention for more than 5 years. (Photo: iStockphoto)

More than 3.1 crore cases are pending in various courts in the country as of 31 March 2016. Many of these cases have been pending for more than a year and more than a crore of these are criminal cases.

The Prison Statistics India 2015 report (PSI 2015) also refers to a large backlog of cases. There are a total of 4.19 lakh jail inmates in the country by the end of 2015, out of which 2.82 lakh are undertrials. More than 70,000 (25 percent) of the undertrial prisoners have been in detention for more than a year.

Most Undertrial Prisoners in Uttar Pradesh

As expected, the highest number of under trial prisoners (62,669) are in Uttar Pradesh, followed by Bihar (23,424). Four states have more than 20,000 undertrial prisoners each while eleven states have more than 10,000 undertrial prisoners each.

Delhi Has Most Undertrial Prisoners per Lakh Population

If population is taken into consideration, the all-India average for number of undertrial prisoners per lakh population is 23.3. Delhi, with 64.94, has the most number of undertrial prisoners per lakh population. Punjab is in the second place with 47.09 followed by Haryana with 41.37. In the top 10 are Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Bihar. Thirteen states/UTs have more undertrial prisoners per lakh population compared to the all-India average. Of the states with more than 1500 under trial prisoners, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have the least number of undertrial prisoners per lakh population with 9.93 and 10.01 respectively.

Undertrial Prisoners in J&K

Of all the undertrial prisoners, more than 25 percent have been in detention for more than a year. As many as 35.2 percent of the undertrial prisoners have been under detention for up to 3 months.

Of all the states/UTs with more than 1,500 undertrial prisoners, 55.2 percent in Jammu & Kashmir have been in detention for more than a year. In Gujarat, 39.8 percent have been behind bars for more than a year.

More than 30 percent of the undertrial prisoners are under detention for more than a year in 10 States/UTs. Of the states with more than 1500 under trial prisoners, only 3 percent are under detention for more than a year in Telangana.

In Jammu & Kashmir, 9.5 percent of the undertrial prisoners have been in jail for more than 5 years, while in Gujarat, 3.5 percent have been behind bars for more than 5 years.

In Kerala, 62.8 percent of the undertrial prisoners have been in detention for up to 3 months, the highest for any state. In Tripura and Telangana, 62.2 percent and 61.4 percent of the undertrial prisoners have been in prison for up to three months respectively.

(This article was originally published in Factly)