International Bridges to Justice, India

Author name: IBJ India

IBJ India: 400 Inmates Attend Legal Awareness Event

On Saturday 31st August, IBJ India conducted yet another successful legal awareness event in New Delhi’s Central Jail No.4 at Tihar Jail housing mostly undertrial prisoners. The purpose of the event was to raise awareness among the inmates on the following topics: effective legal representation, the importance of effective communication with lawyers, plea bargaining and bail. Approximately 400 inmates from  the newcomer wards attended the event. IBJ`s team was comprised of Mr. Avi Singh Advocate, Supreme Court of India, Mr. Ajay Verma, Advocate (IBJ Fellow in India) and IBJ’s Duty Lawyers working in Tihar Prison Mr. Ajay Raghav, Advocate and Shiv Kumar Dwivedi, which took active sessions during the awareness event. Mr. Ajay Verma gave a short introduction on the selected topics. Mr. Avi Singh, Advocate discussed bail provisions and under what circumstances normally court exercise its discretion to grant bail in non-bailable case. During the session some of the poor inmates mentioned that though the Hon’ble court has granted them bail but they are unable to go out because they can’t furnish surety bond as no one comes to meet them and no one is there to stand surety for them. Avi Singh’s session was followed by Mr. Ajay Verma’s talk on importance of effective communication with Lawyers. Most of the inmates realized that they don’t event talk to their lawyers, as they believe that the Lawyers would only be interested reading their documents. There were many inmates who did not have lawyers and asked IBJ India’s help in providing Lawyer. Mr. Ajay Raghav and Mr. Shiv Kumar Dwedi, Advocates volunteered to take their case. After the session the most inmates contributed by asking and sharing problem and sought possible remedies about their cases, and in this way the communication went both ways. In fact, Around 30 people claimed that they had been falsely implicated. In India there is a big need to inform prisoners of their legal rights, for instance there are many inmates not even aware about their right to free legal representation. The lack of effective representation is a huge problem in India. In the event, some time was devoted to talk about bail and speedy trials, and it became clear that 50-60 people were in need of legal assistance. Despite the fact that a lot remains to be done, the event held on 31st August was very successful. To educate inmates about their rights is an important part of IBJ India’s mandate to spread legal awareness in Prisons. The Most rewarding experience for the team was that the Superintendent (In charge of Prison) asked to visit another ward to have another interactive session. Though the team was very happy to visit another ward however due to paucity of time it had to be concluded early. IBJ would again organize another Legal Awareness camp in the same prison. In fact, the prison authorities requested IBJ to continue with these types of events. There are no doubts that the event was another small but important step on the road towards strengthening the legal justice in India. IBJ India Country Fellow Ajay Verma talks to prisoners

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Empowering IBJ India legal rights awareness event for Delhi inmates

Contributed by Sumit Sonkar In yet another endeavor to facilitate, the empowerless IBJ India has reached out to the inmates of Tihar Jail No. 8 on June 5, 2013 in an awareness campaign on legal aid. This time topics chosen were bail and plea bargaining which are of general importance to any person not just in India but throughout the world especially to those who are apprehended and sent to jail. Ajay Verma, Advocate and IBJ’s fellow in India initiated the session by giving the brief outline of bail and plea bargaining and how these concepts lead to speedy trial. Prima facie it was observable that most of the inmates belong to the low strata of society and hence, entitled to legal aid, which compelled Mr. Verma to inquire from the inmates their knowledge about legal aid as a free legal service. But to our surprise not a single a hand was raised in the gathering of more than 200 inmates. What disturbed us the most was that they were not even aware about the legal aid office situated within the premises of Jail No. 8, not to mention the awareness of free legal services, which clearly showed their complete ignorance about legal aid. This single instance gave us a better picture of lack of awareness of Legal Aid in India and much needed systematic concerted reform to overhaul the process of Legal Aid which was beautifully explored by the Supreme Court of India in the case of Hussainara Khatoon & Ors vs Home Secretary, State Of Bihar in that Justice Bhagwati held: ”free legal services are an essential ingredient of ‘reasonable, fair and just, procedure for a person accused of an offence and it must be held implicit in the guarantee of Article 21.” After the briefing Mr. Verma gave opportunity to the IBJ volunteers Kumarjeeb Pegu and Sumit Sonkar who are also law students of  Campus Law Centre, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi to share the detailed information about the topics and brought forth various pros and cons of bail and plea bargaining in the light of surety bond, jurisdiction of court, conditions of bail, nature of offences and what cases they are entitled to bail as a matter of right in bailable offences. However in non-bailable offences bail is at the discretion of the court. It was also explained how a plea bargaining can, without proper application of mind in understanding its effect, lead to spoil an inmate’s career prospects in government jobs. The awareness event was attended by more than 200 inmates of the jail no. 8, who were recently brought to the jail. The desperation for freedom visible from their faces persuaded them to ask questions to Mr. Ajay Verma. In a bid to resolve the queries of unfortunate people Mr. Verma emphatically answered their array of queries from juvenility to appeal in the High Courts and explained various intricacies of law in a simplified manner related to bail and plea-bargaining. Although, the awareness session program is over, it is just a beginning for us to put more determined efforts in this direction to achieve the dream of an equitable and just society by lending a hand of support and voicing the concerns of the voiceless. IBJ India is devoted to being a pillar of support to those who require legal assistance and is prepared to contribute to the daunting task of achieving the objective of social justice. Last but not the least, we would like to thank the superintendent and other staff of jail no. 8 for their hospitality and support of our awareness event.

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Fight of IBJ’s India team against quacks claiming cure for HIV/AIDS in India.

Under Indian law, it is illegal to make claims for diseases that contemporary medicine deems incurable (such as cancer and HIV/AIDS) unless it is scientifically tried and tested, and conclusively proven curative. Because of the stigma and discrimination suffered, people are more and more numerous to be tend by the quacks who are taking advantage of the situation by promising cures and defrauding unsuspecting people who are infected with these types of virus of large sums of money. The survey conducted in Bhopal by the JusticeMakers team along with discussions with the Madhya Pradesh Network of People living with HIV/AIDS (MPNP+) showed that many quacks in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka are claiming to provide treatment. And a large number of people are running to “babas” and others offering spiritual cures. It was the case for this woman: Adhira (not her real name) who came to a doctor in Maharashtra after seeing his advert. This doctor had already been held accountable in many other cases but continued to practice despite the court orders. Scams operated by doctors are well developed. Once a person is tested HIV positive, he is normally put on a 6-month medication after which another test is conducted called P 24 test – P24 being an antigen produced by body when HIV infection starts and gradually goes down–. When the P24 test is again done 6 months later, it shows that the person is cured from HIM and the people are duped. During this time, a huge amount of money is taken from the patient. Even if the situation is still deeply worrying, some truly optimistic actions have been seen recently in India to fight this phenomenon. In January 2007, the Supreme Court ordered Kerala-based T.A. Majeed to stop manufacturing, marketing, selling and distributing Immuno-QR, a drug that he claimed cured HIV/AIDS. Patients groups had been fighting the case since 1993. IBJ’s involvement helps sick people not to be scammed by these quacks and helps them fight against discrimination and stigma imposed by the Indian society because of their illness, through prevention campaigns and significant support to patients. JusticeMakers fellow in Bhopal, Garima Tiwari spoke about her project, about corruption and discriminatory practices in jails (medical facilities/visitation rights in prisons) during the National Consultation on legal Aid in prison on April 2013 with Ajay Verma (IBJ fellow India) organized by the Human Rights Law Network in Delhi. With the common action of JusticeMakers fellow: Garima Tiwari and of the entire team of IBJ’s India, IBJ hope to actively help people against stigma and discrimination, reintegrate them into the community and offer them all care they deserve.

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Wrong place, wrong time: One Auto-Rickshaw driver accused of abetting abduction released home to his wife and children after IBJ’s India help

Prithu* is a 50-year-old street hawker who earns his living by selling eggs in a quiet neighborhood of north Delhi. He says he spent nearly all of his savings trying to get his 28-year-old son, Pran*, out of prison. Prithu came to Delhi in 1985 with his wife and four children. He left Dasai, a small farming village in northern Bihar, in search of greener pastures and a better living.  He found work in a bicycle repair shop and settled down for a one-room shack in a slum, in sharp contrast to the small, concrete house he owned in the village. Prithu believed that this was a small price to pay for the good life he had imagined his family would have in the future. For years Prithu worked at the repair shop, raising his son Pran and 9 other children before buying a wooden cart to sell eggs – a seemingly more profitable enterprise for an otherwise unskilled, illiterate man. Prithu made around $ 400 a month, which could barely support his growing family. Pran was unable to study beyond 4th grade because his father could not afford to send all 10 children to school. So Pran dropped out of school and learned to drive, thinking he could support his family and send his younger siblings to school. Until last year, Pran was driving a hired auto-rickshaw like most auto drivers in Delhi, earning a meager sum of 500-700 rupees ($10-15) a day. But the finances of the family were thrown off balance when they learned of Pran’s detention. Pran was arrested in February 2011 for allegedly abetting an abduction of a 17-year-old girl. On the day of the incident, two men allegedly approached Pran’s auto-rickshaw accompanying a girl and asked him to drive them to a certain location. He didn’t know the passengers and certainly did not know that the men were abducting the girl. They must have driven only a few kilometers down the road when the auto-rickshaw was intercepted by a police van. A case was made and the men were arrested, along with Pran. Pran claimed and begged the police to set him free because he didn’t know the men were abductors, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.  Even at the time of his arrest, he told the police that he was only doing his job and had no role in the abduction, but the police did not pay any attention to his cries. He was taken into police custody and produced in court soon after. Even in court, he stated that he was only a driver and had no idea that he was, legally speaking, “abetting an abduction.’’ Yet he was unheard and remanded to judicial custody. Days and months went by. Pran was forced to resign to a life of hopelessness and shame. He was beaten up by other jail inmates for favours and money as little as 200 rupees ($5), but he did not complain to the prison authorities. He had lost faith in the system and didn’t think there was anyone who could help him. Prithu, Pran’s father, claims that he did not know of Pran’s arrest and reported him missing when they could not find him anywhere. The police made no attempt to inform Pran’s family of his arrest, and Pran himself was perhaps ashamed and scared to inform his father of his imprisonment. Two months later, Prithu finally learned of his son’s imprisonment. Prithu did not have the money to visit Pran right away, but he began to apportion some money from his savings to pay to the Legal Aid lawyer who had been assigned to Pran’s case by the Legal Services Authority. Though state-sponsored legal aid lawyers are supposed to provide free legal assistance to their clients, nothing was done unless some amount of money was given to that Lawyer to initiate the paperwork as he demanded money to initiate the process. Prithu met Pran in prison after nearly six months of his imprisonment. Pran informed his father that three to four lawyers had been assigned to the case, but no one had done anything to seek relief for him. Pran learned about legal aid from his fellow inmates and realized that if he had a competent and sincere lawyer, he could get bail. Both Prithu and Pran knew that it would be months before they would get any justice. “Such is the system,” sighed Prithu, adding that he spent nearly 10,000 rupees ($210) to pay the lawyers who promised they would get Pran out of jail. “But nothing happened and all the money went down the drain.” Prithu recalls that his family went through countless days of hardship and hunger trying to make ends meet and save money for Pran’s bail amount.  Prithu did not earn enough to feed 13 people, including Pran’s wife and two young children; therefore, he sent them back to the village.  Prithu worked extra hours, doing odd jobs in addition to selling eggs only so that he could save some money for his son’s release. In January 2012 IBJ Duty lawyer Suchiti Chandra met Pran in prison and discussed the details of the case with him. She realized that the case clearly merited Pran’s release on bail. Prithu says Ms. Chandra argued for nearly four hours in court highlighting the points in favour of Pran’s innocence, and ultimately managed to secure his release on bail. After 11 unnecessary months of imprisonment, Pran was finally released from prison with his father as the guarantor of his bail. Today, Pran’s father is back to selling eggs and knows that someday everyone in his family will have a happy and secure life. Prithu says IBJ has done what no other lawyer or his entire life’s savings could do – get freedom for his son. Pran himself is back with his wife and children in the village he left behind. He is working as a mechanic at a cycle repair shop earning 4500 rupees a

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Meet Baru, pinned as a terrorist in a new city

Baru*, a resident of a small village in West Bengal, travelled to Delhi in 2005 with the hope of earning enough money to provide sustenance to his family back home. A trained tailor, Baru thought that opportunities would abound in the capital, and started his journey onwards. But when he reached New Delhi Railway station he was picked up by the Delhi Police’ s Special Cell (a Unit of Delhi Police that looks into Cases Pertaining to Terrorism), who took him to their office for questioning. The questioning, which should take a few hours, lasted four long months. In these months, Baru not only became an in-house help of the Special Cell, but was also subjected to torture repeatedly. After four months, the police formally arrested him under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 and booked him under various sections. They claimed that he was a member of Jaish-e-Mohammad, a banned terrorist outfit, and has been a focus of surveillance for a while, as his name was revealed through the data procured from a mobile which was supposedly found with a slain militant. Baru was arrested as soon as he got off the train at New Delhi, eventually accused of being a member of a terrorist group. After his arrest, he was sent to judicial custody to await the conclusion of his trial. He had no idea why he ended up in Tihar, or how his family was faring back in West Bengal. As is typically the case, the trial progressed at a slow pace and only reached its conclusion in 2009, when he was promptly convicted for being a member of J-e-M, though other charges were dropped during the course of trial due to lack of evidence. Baru’s fate was basically decided on the basis of an identity card that could have been printed by anyone with a basic knowledge of computers. Further, no one could vouch for its authenticity, as it supposedly belonged to a banned terrorist outfit. The identity card, which proclaimed Baru as not only a member of Jaish-e-Mohammad but also as an Area Commander, was supposedly recovered after he made a similar statement to the police. However, no independent witnesses were present during the recovery of the identity card. Under the Law of Evidence (part of the Indian Evidence Act), no statement made to the police can be given importance unless accompanied with some sort of recovery. Further, the recovery must be done in front of independent witnesses in order for it to be admissible as evidence. Despite this loophole, the recovery was the basis of the Prosecution’s evidence, on which Baru was convicted and sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment (which includes mandatory labor) and a fine of 1000 rupees. Although Baru had almost finished his time of seven years in jail, he still wanted to continue with an appeal before the High Court of Delhi to prove his innocence. When IBJ Fellow Ajay Verma, Advocate, took the case, he pointed out the numerous discrepancies with the prosecution’s investigation. Though Baru was acquitted after Six and a half years of Unnecessarys Detention, throughout all these years no one from his family could see him in prison due to poverty. When he returned to his village after his release from prison, he found his house was completely damaged and his family’s whereabouts were not known. According to Mr. Ajay Verma, when Baru called him from his village he was crying and said,“Sir, my everything has shattered and whereabouts of my family is unknown.” Thus, a prolonged trial in Indian court not only causes irreparable loss to the Innocent man but also affects his family. *Name has been changed

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Aditya and the Confession

In India, one of the most basic Common Law principles is “better that ten guilty escape than that one innocent suffer.” While the Indian criminal justice system is based along these lines, trial courts have not only grossly erred time and again, but sometimes err in following even the most basic and fundamental principles of Criminal Law. For Aditya, Chandra, Halim, and Kavi, this was the case.* According to the prosecution’s case, the four aforementioned accused had allegedly hatched a criminal conspiracy to commit robbery and in the process allegedly killed a person, taking various objects such as a gold ring, gold chain and a wrist watch. The Trial Court convicted the four accused, giving them to life sentence with a rider of a minimum of 30-years of actual imprisonment with no possibility of remission. According to the basic tenet of criminal law, the prosecution needs to establish their case beyond a reasonable doubt to secure a conviction. Yet there were no eyewitnesses present during the crime, nor any direct evidence that could implicate the four accused. Instead, the Trial Court reached its decision based on one alleged extra-judicial confession, the recovery of stolen objects from the accused, and the recovery of one mobile phone and its call records. The prosecution alleged that Aditya gave an extra-judicial confession to the deceased’s driver, one of the prosecution witnesses. Although the Supreme Court of India has declared on multiple occasions that an extra-judicial confession is very weak evidence, neither the prosecution nor the trial court considered it to be weak. Though the prosecution provided no corroboration of the extra-judicial confession, yet the trial court relied upon it as a valuable piece of evidence. The court also relied upon the recovery of incriminating evidence from the accused as another valuable piece of evidence—but the deceased’s family did not report the theft of these objects for more than a month after the commission of the crime. The prosecution never bothered questioning this lapse of time between the crime and the report of the theft. All the accused were held jointly liable under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code, which addresses criminal conspiracy. Although no direct evidence is usually needed to establish the offence of criminal conspiracy, the prosecution is still required to establish the offence through clear and cogent evidence. The basic principles of Fair Trial are the right to be presumed innocent and the right to be tried without undue delay, both of which were disregarded in this instance. Aditya spent about in total 6 years in prison, first as an undertrial and subsequently as a convict. But his family hurt from his imprisonment too. He was the sole bread winner for his aged parents, wife and school-going daughter. Though his income was meager, it still provided sustenance to his entire family, which was lost once he was incarcerated. When the case came up before the Honorable High Court of Delhi in Appeal, IBJ India Fellow Mr. Ajay Verma, Advocate, mentioned these flaws in the prosecution’s case and the trial court’s decision. The High Court looked into this evidence, concluding that there were not only lapses in the investigation but the evidence was not strong enough to confirm the guilt of the accused beyond the shadow of reasonable doubt. Thus, all the four accused were acquitted of all charges and ordered to be set free. This case is a glaring example of the shortcomings that plague the Judiciary (the lower judiciary in particular,) clearly showing how the Trial Court failed to appreciate the evidence in proper light and held four innocent persons guilty on the basis of weak evidence. *Names have been changed

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IBJ India conducted latest Rights Awareness Campaign for Convicted Prisoners at Central Jail No.2 Tihar (New Delhi)

On 8th March 2013, International Bridges to Justice (India) endeavored to inform convicted inmates in Tihar Jail (New Delhi) about their rights, focusing on the right to appeal but also the entitlement to parole, furlough and remission of sentences. 35 detainees attended the event in the meditation hall of New Delhi’s Central Prison. Ajay Verma, Advocate and IBJ’s fellow in India started the session with a short presentation of the organization before asking the inmates if any of them had been sentenced recently, which triggered three hands raised. Most of the convicts actually filed an appeal but those cases were still pending, sometimes for years, in contradiction with the right to a speedy trial. For instance, one of the participants related that he already served 9 years of a 10 years of sentence awarded to him, although an appeal was lodged 4 years ago through a legal aid lawyer and the same is still pending. Two other inmates underwent an acquittal order reversed by the High Court but no appeal was thrown to the Supreme Court by their lawyers, underlining the lack of communication between clients and some advocates in India. IBJ took the appeal numbers of the pending cases in order to figure out the reasons why the proceedings are following such a slow pace. Over the discussion about the right to appeal, the only case which had reached the Supreme Court and was supposed to be definitive highlighted again the plight of the juveniles treated as adults by the judicial and prison authorities. In that case, seven members of a family were convicted, including the youngest brother who was sentenced to life, although he was only 17 years old when he committed the crime. The Supreme Court confirmed the High Court’s judgment, probably because of the lack of evidence regarding the juvenility of the accused. Indeed, the minor’s brother pointed out during the session that the family wasn’t able to produce any birth or school certificate before the judges. Nevertheless, the claim of doubts on the age of the accused was never heeded by the judicial authorities and no ossification test was ordered. Mr. Verma suggested that a writ petition may be filed by him to Hon’ble High Court of Delhi after taking into account the judgment of Hon’ble Supreme Court of India passed in the Criminal Appeal No. 1193 of 2006 Titiled as “ Abuzar Hossain@ Gulam Hossain Vs State of West Bengal” decided on 10 October 2010 where in Hon’ble Apex court in Para 36 (ii) has held that “…..For making a claim wit regard to juvenility after conviction the claimant must produce some material  which prima facie satisfy the court that an inquiry into the claim of juvenility is necessary. Initial burden has to be discharged by the person who claims juvenility….”so as to raise the issue of the juvenility of the convict. Further on, parole and furlough topics were discussed. One of the detainees recounted that he spent 2 years in Tihar but was never granted parole. Ajay Verma replied by reminding him that he was entitled to challenge a denial of parole before the High Court. They also added that the behavior of the legal aid society within the wards of the jail was worsening the situation since the parole applications are rarely forwarded to the appropriate Authority. As a result, the right of parole of short-term sentence is often hindered, on the opposite of long-term sentence who have more time ahead not to be bothered by the slow speed of the proceedings. The discussion lasted almost two hours, with a satisfying outcome for IBJ since a few cases are going to be taken up by the organization.

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IBJ India Promoting Access to Justice in a National Criminology Conference

Contributed By: Auriane Mouret On 16th February 2013, International Bridges to Justice was invited to the 36th All India Criminology Conference at the National Law University of New Delhi. The specific session, wherein IBJ was present, was attended by legal luminaries such as Prof. B. B. Pande, President of Indian Society of Criminology, Prof. Arvind Tiwari from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Dr. Upneet Lalli, Deputy Director of Institute of Correctional Administration and several other Professors from other Universities. After a brief introduction of the purpose of the gathering by Prof. Pande, Dr Lalli started the session with a speech about the right to rehabilitation, underlining that imprisonment and other sentences are expected to aim at improving detainees and not only monitoring them. For instance, she highlighted the fact that the community services implemented by the judges to juveniles are not really in compliance with the Justice Juvenile Act, since many of the minors are sentenced to casual works, which are not actually aiming at reforming those young offenders. Presentation on Access to Justice & Rights of Prisoners Right after this enlightening intervention, Pallavi Saxena, Program Officer with IBJ India made a short presentation of IBJ’s work in India, emphasizing on the means implemented by IBJ to ensure access to justice. Pallavi explained how early access to counsel is one of the most efficient ways to fight against torture, illustrating her speech with IBJ’s founder Karen Tse’s speech and custodial deaths’ figures. To begin with, she set out the Duty Lawyers Program, where the aim is to provide legal representation to the accused in an effort to reduce pre-trial detention. The concept of capacity building trainings was also discussed wherein lawyers are motivated, especially by making them focus on the principles of fair trial and of getting immediate relief for pre-trial detainees. The Street Law Campaigns were also related, reminding the audience of the need of awareness about prisoners’ rights in the Indian society. The burning issue of juveniles incarcerated in adults’ prisons was then discussed and Pallavi exposed how IBJ is trying to deal with this problem, by working with the Delhi Legal Service Authority and the other stakeholders. The presentation ended with a few words about IBJ’s upcoming events and projects. The participants were very receptive and happy to learn about IBJ’s work. Clips of Karen’s TED Talk during the presentation

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Community Outreach at Neemrana, Rajasthan

IBJ India together with Legal Bar Association of Neemrana and Behror Legal Association on 29th July’2012 organized a community outreach in Neemrana, Rajashthan. The Programme was held on NIIT University Campus Neemrana, Rajasthan and was started off by Mohan Lal Soni, Chief Judicial Magistrate of Neemrana. Mr. Soni started by  introducing IBJ India team which comprised of Mr. Ajay Verma, IBJ India Fellow; Mr. Avi Singh, Advocate, Supreme Court and the Interns. The participants of the community outreach were lawyers from Neemrana Bar Association, police department of Neemrana and some members of the community. The agenda of the day was to create legal rights awareness especially in regards to fair trial principles, legal aid, but as it was a Rural Community wherein Gram Nyayalaya Act, 2008 is applicable, its provisions were also dealt with. Mr. Verma started by giving a brief introduction of IBJ as an organization and its mandate, which has been to provide effective legal representation to everyone and the vision that no one gets justice denied due to monetary or any other constraints. The aim of these events is not just to encourage and strengthen the training and knowledge of the participating lawyers, to take what they learn during the training and utilize it effectively in their respective practices, but also to ensure that everyone is well aware of their rights, as its only when you know the rights, that one can fight for them. Further he discussed the topic on hand – Gram Nyayalaya act 2008 and Lok Adalat, both of these justice delivery mechanisms have been designed to ensure swift deliver of justice, as they rely on providing fair trial and principles of natural justice are followed. He laid down the point of these being mobile Courts designed to provide justice at one’s door step. The provisions of fair trial and its application in each and every criminal trial, and how this is a right of every individual, were discussed.  Some of the rights that are present within the Right to fair trial are right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, right against self-incrimination or right to remain silent, right against inhuman/cruel treatment in jail, right to be aware ground of arrest, right to legal counsel/legal aid, right to bail, right to speedy trial, right against double jeopardy, right to reasoned judgment, right to be present at the trial. The session continued with Mr. Avi Singh, sharing his view about various aspects of rights, but he also moved on to some provisions of environment law considering the fact that environment week was going on at the Campus. He talked about the provisions of Environment Protection Act 1986, Aravalli Notification, forest conservation act, under which it states that any forest notified or not are not allowed to be cut off any trees under any conditions and also the sustainable development of any project should be established according to the benefit of natural environment. He also grazed through the doctrine of public trust, intergeneration trust, and land acquisition act considering it to be our constitutional right. An important question that arose during the session was why instead of all this rules for the protection of nature there still exist no changes? Application of environmental impact assessment, a necessity in today’s world according to which we as a citizen should start asking questions and purpose to ensure that decision makers consider the ensuing environmental impacts when deciding whether to proceed with a project. The next speaker Mr. Hukum Chand Singh, one of the lawyers and he discussed briefly the Gram Nyayalaya Act, and shared his views regarding how the present system can be improved. According to him gram nyayalaya had been established to deliver justice; but there is a need to provide security and decorum in the delivery of the judgment, so that people participating are not able to hinder the delivery of justice. He appreciated the work of legal aid organizations in enabling justice and its necessity to should be made available in all places. After a tea break, the session resumed with Mr. Soni discussing the importance of legal awareness, as one of the basic premise of the law is that ignorance of fact may excused but not ignorance of law, thus it becomes extremely important to provide legal awareness in a world where legal phraseology is complex and amendments are the norm. It is imperative to understand that in order to ensure that the idea of legal aid to all and the concept of access to Justice for all, because of monetary constraints can only be ensured, if effective mechanisms are in place and they are implemented. Mechanisms such as Gram Nyayalayas ensure that justice is provided at door steps, with minimum costs, less time lags and minimum complexities. Similarly, Lok Adalats ensure that matters are disposed in a quick and inexpensive manner.  It is also pertinent to point out that these justice delivery mechanisms are not bound by the complex legal principles but rely on the principle of natural justice which provides the presiding officer with the discretion to ensure that justice is delivered keeping in mind the local complexities. However, this also needs a cautious approach to ensure that discretion does not take on the garb of arbitrary. Mr. Ravinder Samria, Advocate touched briefly on the topic of Labour welfare, and to make the common people aware of their rights. As Neemrana is developing into an industrial zone, all the individuals need to recognize and know their rights under the Constitution so no big industries can take advantage of them, due to their ignorance. Awareness about the various legal options that are available with an individual can help improve the living standard and conditions of the common man. The event ended with a vote of thanks to all the participants for contributing to this event and IBJ India for making an effort to bring about the changes by spreading legal awareness.

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Rights Awareness Drive in Women Prison, Tihar, New Delhi

September 20th’2012 saw IBJ India make an attempt to not just understand the problems faced by Women Prisoners, but to agree upon a course of action that will alleviate the conditions of the Prisoners and grant them some reprieve from their problems. This event started as an awareness drive, as has been the mandate of IBJ India, and the team comprised of Mr. Ajay Verma, Sister Mary Scaria, Ms. Karuna Nundy and Ms. Pallavi Saxena visited Tihar Jail No.6. A bit of research was done while organizing the drive, in order to understand the issues that govern the inmates of Tihar Jail No. 6, also the only Women Prison in New Delhi. This research was necessary in order to provide information which will be beneficial to the prisoners, therefore this drive meant we had two separate sessions, wherein the first one was with the inmates accused of dowry death, and the other was with the foreign inmates who have been accused of the crimes under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. When Section 304 B was introduced in IPC, it was to prevent the evil of dowry death and to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice. However, one cannot deny that this section has become one of the most abused and misused section of IPC. Complete families are put in prison, just on mere suspicion and, more often than not, are denied bail due to the ‘seriousness and gravity of the offence’. In the first session, we met many such inmates, and most of them had been denied bail on the grounds of seriousness of the offence or that the main witness testimony is yet to be recorded. At this point, Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was introduced to them, which deals with inherent power of the High Court to make such orders as may be necessary to give effect to any order of the Code, or to prevent abuse of the process of any court or otherwise to secure the ends of justice. As per this section the inmates were informed that they are well within their right to make any application to High Court under this section if they genuinely believe that there are no grounds for their arrest, and the charges should be dropped. The importance of telling the lawyers the whole story was pointed out to them repeatedly, as also was the fact, that sometimes when one gets emotional, they forget to point out the obvious. Therefore, as most of them knew how to read and write, they were told to read the FIR as well as the chargesheet, when it is filed so they are able to point out the discrepancies in it. The necessity of being aware about their rights as well as of the charges that are alleged against them was pointed out, as most of them were relying on the family members to look into the facts and did not even know some very basic facts. The session with the foreign inmates was intense, as there was lot of anger and frustration of being stuck in another country for so long. They all wanted deportation, but the same is not possible due to not just the law of India but also other Countries, as one would need to look into the extradition treaties that are in place. The idea was put forward to file a petition for speedy trial as most of the inmates were there for more than 3 years. Though they were agreeable to it but it was not the preferred option for them. As the law concerned for all of them is NDPS Act, where the provisions are stringent, bail is hardly ever an option, especially for a foreigner as they do not have permanent residence. Another grievance was that they are not allowed to meet anyone during the weekly meeting time. Later, we were informed by the Prison Authorities, that as per the rules, an individual needs to have an identity card, however the foreign nationals who have overstayed their visa do not want to show their passports, therefore, no one comes to meet them, and not that they do not have the permission to meet. However, such assurances do not assuage the feeling of an individual who feels that their life as they knew it has come to an end, as was pointed out by one female, who said that she has been in the prison for the past 10 years, and in the meanwhile, her father, mother, brother and sister have passed away. When we enquired about her from the authorities, we were informed that she has been convicted and application for her deportation is pending; therefore, there was not much that we could do in this instance. The drive ended with a promise that, a follow-up session will be conducted with the prisoners who need legal aid, as due to paucity of time we were unable to give individual time to the prisoners. This follow-up session will gather data where legal aid is required by the inmates and also about the foreign inmates so a petition can be filed for a speedy trial, to ensure that an innocent person does not end up spending time in the jail.

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