Law Commission moots easier bail for poor

-The Telegraph

New Delhi: The Law Commission has urged the government to amend the Criminal Procedure Code to make it easier for poor and illiterate accused to secure bail, and against "reasonable" bonds.

It has stressed that the rich tend to receive bail easily in the country whereas the poor are denied bail outright or are set bail bonds that are beyond their ability to pay.

It has also highlighted that over 70 per cent of the 2.31 lakh accused in the country's jails - who outnumber the convicts - are illiterate or semi-literate.

"The present system of bail is heavily influenced by economic status and discriminates against the impoverished and the illiterate. Our judicial system seems to have evolved two approaches to bail - bail as a right for the financially able; and for (the) rest, bail is dependent on judicial discretion, exercised through manipulation of the amount of 'reasonable' bail that will be required," the commission has said in its 268th report, handed over to law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on May 23.

"Often the criteria for setting bail amounts fail to take into account the accused person's ability to pay, hence the loss of liberty is imminent in the pre-trial detention."

Headed currently by Justice B.S. Chauhan, a former Supreme Court judge, the commission is a statutory body that suggests legal reforms to the government in the light of the best international practices and the changing times. Its recommendations are not binding on the government or Parliament.

One reform it has suggested is automatic bail for anyone accused of an offence punishable with not more than seven years if he or she has already been in jail for a third of the seven-year period.

Currently, all accused (except for those charged with offences where the death sentence is possible) are entitled to bail if they have already spent in jail a period equal to half the maximum sentence for the offence.

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