The recently released movie Jail is a fictional account of an ordinary man caught in the crossfire of a crime, arrested and jailed. In the face of a lethargic criminal justice system, he never gets his day in court. Bhandarkar, famous for hard-hitting displays of social realities in films like Chandni Bar and Page 3, strips away misconceptions of what happens inside India’s 1276 prisons and lays bare the lives of our 3.76 lakh prisoners.

Truth really is stranger than fiction, and it does not take a Bollywood eye or budget to realize that injustice is endemic to India’s jails. Take for example an issue that has drawn the attention in recent weeks: the 2.5 lakh prisoners languishing in jails without trial or conviction.

The government’s response to this issue has been implementing catchy but risky shortcuts to justice like video-conferencing and jail adalats. There is no such silver bullet. The target must be twofold: the simple and swift disposal of cases and obeying the 2005 amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure to make bail the rule and jail the exception.

For those undertrial prisoners charged with crimes not punishable by death, hope arrived with Section 436A of the CrPC, introduced in the CrPC Amendment Act 2005. This made release on personal bond or bail possible for those accused persons who have been in prison for one half of the maximum term of sentence they could serve if convicted. This was accompanied by Section 436(1) that allowed for the release on personal bond of those individuals charged with bailable crimes but unable to arrange for surety. The home ministry estimated these amendments could lead to the release of 40,000 to 50,000 undertrials, dramatically reducing the plight of overcrowding in India’s jails, but they have been slowly implemented, if at all. I and my team have had to point out the law — which can barely be called “new” these days — in our copies of the CrPC to too many prison administrators ignorant to these provisions.

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