Judgment

BHAGWATI, J. :- This case before us is on a letter dated November 28, 1980 addressed to the Court by one Dr. Vasudha Dhagamwar, a researcher and Social Scientist working in the Santhal Praganas of the State of Bihar. It represents one more instance of the utter callousness and indifference of our legal and judicial system to the under-trial prisoners languishing in the jails. It seems that once a person accused of an offence is lodged in the jail everyone forgets about him and no one bothers to care what is happening to him. He becomes a mere ticket number-a forgotten specimen of humanity-cut off and alienated from the society, an unfortunate victim of a heartless legal and judicial system which consigns him to long unending years of oblivion in jail.

2. Here is a case where four young boys who are designated as petitioners in the writ petition have been in Pakud sub-jail in Santhal Praganas for a period of about eight years without their trial having made any progress. They all belong to the Paharia Tribe which is admittedly a backward tribe. Two of them were arrested on 26th Nov., 1972 while the other two, on 19th Dec., 1972. The jail record shows the ages of the petitioners between 18 and 22 years at the time of their arrest, but Dr. Vasudha Dhagamwar states in her letter that they could not have been more than 9 to 11 years old when they were arrested, because on inquiry the jail staff told her that the petitioners were "naked goat-herds" when they first came to jail and when Dr. Vasudha Dhagamwar saw them in October, 1980, they looked about 18 to 22 years old. Though the petitioners were brought to the jail as far back as November and December, 1972, their case was not committed to the Court of Session until 2nd July, 1974. It is difficult to understand why their committal to the Court of Session should have been delayed for such a long period as 20 months after their arrest. We should like the High Court of Patna to make an inquiry and find out why it should have taken a period of 20 months for the case of the petitioners to be committed to the Sessions Court and to submit a report to us of the result of such inquiry. But this was not the end of the delay and procrastination of the justicing process. It was just the beginning, because we find that though the case was committed to the Court of Session on 2nd July, 1974, the trial did not commence until 30th August 1977. It took a period of three years for the trial to begin after the committal to the Court of Session. This discloses a shocking state of affairs. There is something wrong with the entire system. How can any civilised society tolerate a legal and judicial system which keeps a person in jail for three years without even commencing his trial. But the atrocity does not end here: more is yet to come. Though the trial of the petitioners commenced on 30th August, 1977 it was merely a symbolic commencement, for it never proceeded further and it has not yet made any progress. The petitioners appeared in the Sessions Court on 30th August, 1977 but thereafter, Dr. Vasudha Dhagamwar says, they have not been in Court again. Three more years have passed but they are still rotting in jail, not knowing what is happening to their case. They are perhaps reconciled to their fate, living in a small world of their own cribbed, cabined and confined within the four walls of the prison. The outside world just does not exist for them. The Constitution has no meaning and significance and human rights, no relevance for them. It is a crying shame upon our adjudicatory system which keeps men in jail for years on end without a trial. We had occasion in Hussainara Khatoons case (1980) 1 SCC 81 to criticise this shocking state of affairs and we hoped that after the anguish expressed and the severe strictures passed by us, the justice system in the State of Bihar would improve and no one shall be allowed to be confined in jail for more than a reasonable period of time, which we think