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Justice Vikram Nath highlighted that seventy per cent of India’s prisoners are undertrials, urging urgent legal aid reform and accountability for fair justice.
Supreme Court Judge Vikram Nath
Supreme Court Justice Vikram Nath said on Friday that seventy per cent of India’s prison population consists of people who have not yet been found guilty, calling for urgent reform in the way legal aid and undertrial detention are handled.
He stated that most undertrials remain in jail not because the law demands it, but because the system has let them down.
“There are undertrials who have spent time in prison exceeding the maximum sentence for the very offence they are accused of. There are undertrials charged with bailable offences who remain in custody simply because they could not furnish bail. There are undertrials who would have been acquitted or given suspended sentences had their trials concluded promptly, yet they continue to languish,” Bar and Bench quoted Nath as saying.
Justice Nath was speaking at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad during the release of the Report of the Fair Trial Programme in Pune and Nagpur, organised by the Square Circle Clinic.
He noted that many prisoners are unaware of their right to legal aid, and even those who are often mistrust the system because of past experiences.
“Even in cases where they do know, they often refrain from seeking it due to distrust stemming from past experiences. They rather go ahead with engaging some private advocate believing that if they pay someone, he’ll do better than the person who is getting nothing out of it,” he said.
The judge said that the lack of trust and access defeats the constitutional promise of liberty and dignity. “When legal aid is rendered in form but not in spirit, it may still comply with procedure, but it fails the Constitution. It fails the idea of justice itself. It is not enough to just provide a lawyer; we must ensure that the representation is effective.”
Justice Nath further observed that legal aid in India continues to operate in isolated silos, with courts, prisons, and legal services authorities functioning independently, leaving poor and unrepresented accused adrift in the system.
He emphasised the need to connect these institutions through a single line of accountability, extending from the first hearing to the final outcome.
“It needs to be understood that this is not merely a formality. It is a constitutional duty, one that can decide whether a person spends years in confinement or walks free with dignity.”
He also suggested that law schools take legal aid work seriously and help students experience law through service.
“Every law school must treat legal aid clinics as places where justice comes alive, not as extra work to be checked off a list. If a young lawyer’s first real experience of law comes from meeting an undertrial, from seeing his fear and hope, rather than from reading it in a book, we will have already begun to reshape our profession.”
Stressing that certain groups face much greater hardships in the criminal justice system and require a compassionate approach, Nath said, “True equality demands that we account for the distinct burdens carried by women and other vulnerable groups and shape our laws, policies and institutions in a manner that enables them to stand on equal footing, whether it is through effective legal aid, access to healthcare, safe spaces, or institutional sensitivity.”
He underscored that improving legal aid is not charity, but an act of faith in the Constitution. “It is not an act of charity, but an act of faith, faith in the Constitution and faith in the equality of all before the law.”
He concluded his speech saying that, “The measure of our legal system lies not in the elegance of our jurisprudence or the efficiency of our procedures, but in how we treat the most vulnerable within it.”
November 08, 2025, 20:35 IST
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