Bail Or Jail? Justice On Trial

When Justice B.V. Nagarathna remarked that the Supreme Court is turning into a “bail court”, she was not exaggerating. She was exposing the ugly truth of India’s criminal justice system, a system that pays lip service to the principle enunciated decades ago by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer—that “bail is the rule, jail the exception”—but practices the very opposite. Iyer had granted bail to a poor convict who, though technically released on a surety of Rs 10,000, could not afford it. For a man earning Rs 3 a day, which was a cruel joke—bail in name, jail in fact. Today, trial courts and even high courts still resort to such tactics, preferring to keep accused persons locked up rather than risk being accused of “selling bail”. The result: a flood of bail pleas before the Supreme Court, where many prisoners have already wasted years—sometimes longer than the sentence they would have faced if convicted.

Arrest in India has become punishment by itself. The police know it. Prosecuting agencies know it. And politicians know how to misuse it. Five years after the Delhi riots, several accused still languish in jail, their trials nowhere near completion. In Madhya Pradesh, two nuns were arrested for escorting adult tribal girls to a nursing institute. First accused of attempted conversion, then of trafficking, they would have remained in jail for long. It is this misuse of power, not justice, that is on display. What makes it worse is the selective application of law. Under draconian statutes, especially those that restrict bail, an accused is guilty until proven innocent. Agencies like the Enforcement Directorate boast of arrests splashed across headlines, but their conviction rates are abysmally low. By the time the case collapses, the accused has already spent years in prison, reputation ruined, family shattered.

Meanwhile, our jails burst at the seams with undertrials, many of them poor, voiceless, and forgotten. The system is stacked against them. If you have money, you can fight. If not, you rot. And when courts themselves are reduced to conveyor belts of bail petitions, justice becomes arbitrary. The real scandal is that there is no accountability. Police officers who foist false cases walk away unscathed. Agencies that ruin lives with bogus charges face no penalty. Stronger laws are not the answer; we already have too many. What India needs is certainty of justice, not harshness of punishment. A criminal justice system that cannot distinguish between guilt and accusation, that uses arrest as a weapon and bail as a privilege, is not a justice system at all. It is an instrument of oppression. Until we overhaul it, justice will remain imprisoned—and the Supreme Court will remain, in Justice Nagarathna’s words, a bail court.