Fundamental rights: CJP seeks measures to reduce prison crowding

Urges magistrates not to grant remand too easily.

LAHORE:

A two-member bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed concern at overcrowding in Punjab’s jails and summoned the home secretary for Thursday (today) to explain how he planned to reduce the number of prisoners and improve jail facilities.

Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, heading the bench, remarked that poor prisoners faced brutal conditions in prisons while the rich and influential got themselves shifted to hospitals. Prosecutors and police did nothing but demanded handsome salaries, he said. They did not produce evidence and witnesses in courts, and then the courts were blamed when the accused were acquitted, he said.

The chief justice made these remarks after going through a report submitted by the Inspector General (Prisons) which showed that Lahore’s two prisons  Camp Jail and Kot Lakhpat – were operating at thrice their capacity. Camp Jail, which has space for 1,050 prisoners, houses 3,659 inmates; Kot Lakhpat Jail, built for 1,000 prisoners, houses 3,500.

The chief justice also noted that 2,306 people were in jail awaiting the submission of the challans against them so their trials could start. Under the law, the police are supposed to submit a challan within 15 days of arresting someone.

The chief justice asked the IG (Prisons) if he could explain how many of these inmates had been imprisoned this year, how many last year, and how many in earlier years. The IG (Prisons) was unable to answer. Punjab Police IG Habibur Rehman was also present in the court.

The court also urged magistrates to make sure that they examine the police file closely and apply a judicial mind to police requests for physical remand. It directed the member of the Inspection Team (MIT) of the Lahore High Court to seek an explanation from the Cantonment Courts judicial magistrate why unnecessary extensions of remand (both physical and judicial) were being granted without cogent reasons and why the police were not submitting challans.

The court also directed the MIT to convey the court’s concern to all judicial magistrates in the Punjab and ask them to refrain from granting remand without applying a judicial mind.

These issued surfaced before the apex court during the hearing of a bail petition from a man named Ali Nawaz who has been in jail for eight months but is yet to be charge-sheeted. The court dismissed his bail plea on Tuesday, ruling that there appeared to be sufficient evidence to prosecute him for the murder of his wife, Advocate Neelam Barial.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd, 2012.