A Swetha, The Tamil Nadu DR. Ambedkar Law University
ABSTRACT
“The extent to which human rights are respected and protected within the extent of its criminal proceeding is an important measure of society’s civilisation”- Justice P.N. Bhagwati
Does a human being becomes a non-human when he is an accused or prisoner? Does imprisonment or conviction eclipse the fundamental rights and human dignity of the prisoners? With the lapse of time, injustice done to the victims in prisons have never been redressed. Ill-treatment and cruelty towards persons in police and judicial custody is what custodial violence. Custodial violence is not a modern phenomenon, we can find the traces of the same since the Vedic period. Entrance into the prison does not mandate shedding of rights guaranteed to a person under the Indian constitution. Though we don’t have a peculiar legislation concerning the rights of jailbirds, we have The Prisons Act, 1894 and international conventions against torture inflicted to the prisoners. Reference to the guidelines given by the International Red Cross Committee for investigating the custodial death has been made because of scanty legislation in investigating such custodial death. Open prisons are most welcomed in the recent days where the prisoners seldom attempt to escape. As the name suggests, inmates are set free unlike the usual prisons. Absence of anti-torture law also stirs-up the custodial deaths, there’s an acute requisite to pass laws in order to subside the death of poor souls in lock up and prison.
