SOUTH ASIA - House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats

2230proceedings shall be instituted, except with the previous sanction of the central Governmentagainst any person in respect of anything done or purported to be done inexercise of powers’’ conferred by the act.The court system is extremely overloaded, resulting in the detention of numerouspersons awaiting trial for periods longer than they would receive if convicted. Prisonersmay be held for months or even years before obtaining a trial date. Accordingto a reply to a parliamentary question in July 1994, more than 111,000 criminalcases were pending in the Allahabad High Court, the most serious case backlog inthe country, of which nearly 29,000 cases had been pending for 5 to 8 years. A statementto Parliament in July 1996 indicated that criminal and civil cases pending beforethe country’s high courts numbered nearly 2.9 million in 1995, roughly thesame as in 1994, but an increase from 2.65 million in 1993. According to the UnionHome Ministry, the total number of civil and criminal cases pending for 3 or moreyears in all courts throughout the country was 5,116,895 on December 31, 1998. Inits most recent report, the NHRC reported that nearly 80 percent of all prisonersheld between April 1996 and March 1997, were so-called ‘‘undertrials,’’ i.e.,unconvicted remand prisoners awaiting the start or conclusion of their trials. In its1997–98 report, the NHRC stated that it ‘‘remains deeply disturbed by the presenceof a large number of under trial prisoners in different jails in the country.’’ In March1999, the chairman of the NHRC said that 60 percent of all police arrests were ‘‘unnecessaryand unjustifiable,’’ and that the incarceration of those wrongly arrestedaccounted for 43 percent of the total annual expenditure on prisons. The NHRC reportedin February on its November 1999 visits to jails in Guwahati (see Section1.c.). The Commission found that 90 percent of the 780 inmates were unconvictedprisoners awaiting completion of trial. On February 27, the NHRC directed theOrissa government to pay $1,000 (50,000 rupees) as interim relief to a 16-year-oldboy who was victim of illegal detention and torture by police at Kandhamal. Accusedof theft, the boy was sent to a regular prison to await trial, rather than a juvenilehome. In March the NHRC reported that it had directed the West Bengal governmentto pay $1,000 (50,000 rupees) in compensation to the court guardian of a12year-old girl who was in the custody of the West Bengal police for nearly a decadebecause she was the sole witness to her parents’ murder. On July 9, Bihar policeregistered a case against then-Bihar Minister of State for Cooperatives Lalit Yadav,his cousin, and four others for alleged illegal detention and torture of a truck driverand cleaner at the minister’s residence. The complaint alleges that Yadav kept thetwo men in wrongful confinement for a month, beat them, and tortured them. Thetwo men’s toenails allegedly were pulled out and they were forced to drink urine.Yadav was dismissed from his state government post and from his political partymembership.On November 28, the Government announced that it was allocating $108.15 million(5.03 billion rupees) to state governments for the creation of 1,734 additionalcourts during 2000–2005, in order to hear more cases and reduce the number of remandprisoners.In June 1997, Rongthong Kunley Dorji, a Bhutanese dissident, was placed in judicialcustody pending review of an extradition request from the Government of Bhutanon charges that included political offenses as well as financial malfeasance. OnJune 12, 1998, Dorji was released on bail following the New Delhi High Court’s decisionto deny a government appeal and let stand a lower court’s order to grant bailin the case. Dorji still awaits conclusion of his extradition hearing.The Government does not use forced exile.e. Denial of Fair Public Trial.—There is an independent judiciary with strong constitutionalsafeguards. Under a Supreme Court ruling, the Chief Justice, in consultationwith his colleagues, has a decisive voice in selecting judicial candidates.The President appoints judges, and they may serve up to the age of 62 on the statehigh courts and up to the age of 65 on the Supreme Court.Courts of first resort exist at the subdistrict and district levels. More serious casesand appeals are heard in state-level high courts and by the national-level SupremeCourt, which also rules on constitutional questions. State governments appoint subdistrictand district judicial magistrates. High court judges are appointed on the recommendationof the federal law ministry, with the advice of the Supreme Court, theHigh Court Chief Justice, and the chief minister of the State, usually from amongdistrict judges or lawyers practicing before the same courts. Supreme Court judgesare appointed similarly from among High Court judges. The Chief Justice is selectedon the basis of seniority.When legal procedures function normally, they generally assure a fair trial, butthe process often is drawn out and inaccessible to poor persons. Defendants havethe right to choose counsel from attorneys who are fully independent of the Govern-VerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:46 Sep 20, 2001 Jkt 071555 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\COUNTRYR\S71555\71555.035 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1