Date: 6th May, 2013
One of the most disastrous consequences of the strife in the tribal areas of Central India is that thousands of adivasi men and women remain imprisoned as under-trials, often many years after being arrested, accused of ‘Naxalite/ Maoist’ offences.
The facts speak for themselves.
In Chhattisgarh, over two thousand adivasis are currently in jail, charged with ‘Naxalite/Maoist’ offences. Many have been imprisoned for over two years without trial. In Jharkhand, an even larger number of adivasis, possibly in excess of five thousand, remain imprisoned as under-trials. The situation is similar in many others states of central and eastern India currently affected by armed conflict between the government and adivasi-linked militant movements, namely Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and West Bengal. The adivasi undertrial population may run into thousands in each of the states. Assessing the true scale of the problem is inherently difficult, given that none of the police or jail administrations are making comprehensive figures public, even after RTI requests have been filed by concerned citizens. This opacity adds to the injustice.
In each of these states, the adivasi under-trials, and particularly those arrested under special security statutes, face grave common handicaps that obstruct their Constitutional right to a fair, speedy trial, to justice.
These include:
One, language barriers. The vast majority of adivasi under-trials speak only adivasi languages, such as Gondi and Halbi. However, few if any courts have official interpreters/translators. This leaves the adivasis unable to communicate directly with the Officers of the Court or otherwise effectively make their case.
Two, the failure, in case after case, for evidentiary material, such as captured arms or explosives, to be promptly submitted in court by the security forces when they first produce the detainees before the Magistrate, as the Magistrate can statutorily direct the security forces to do when they level such serious charges. Typically, the security personnel only make oral statements that are accepted as the truth by the Magistrate concerned. In the absence of prima facie proof, the grave risk of injustice being done to innocent adivasis is self-evident.
Three, procedural barriers relating to ‘Naxalite/Maoist’ and other security offences. Being charged with such offences, the under-trials are not produced in the courts for lengthy periods, on the grounds that there is not “sufficient police guard” to escort them to the court. Owing to this, the trial does not proceed for years together.
Four, other procedural barriers. Since under-trials charged with ‘Naxalite/Maoist’ offences are only held in Central Jails, many of them of them are transferred to jails at a great distance from their homes and families. In Chhattisgarh, for instance, nearly one hundred adivasi under-trials from Bastar have been transferred to Durg or Raipur Central Jails, a distance of over 300 kilometers. The great distance, coupled with the poverty of most adivasis, means that families are unable to regularly visit them or provide them with vital emotional support. Moreover, as their cases continue to be heard in the distant courts where they were arrested and first produced, they are taken to court even less frequently than earlier.
Five, the lack of proper legal defence. Lawyers who visit ‘Naxal/Maoist’ under-trials in Chhattisgarh are photographed by the authorities and their information listed in a separate register, making lawyers reluctant to visit their clients. In any event, many of the adivasi under-trials are dependent on legal-aid lawyers who rarely go to meet the client or seek instructions regarding the case. Often lawyers are careless in their conduct of cases and are amenable to pressures from the police or prosecution.
All of this is a cause of harsh and needless suffering to these under-trials, their families and their communities, worsening their impoverishment and vulnerability.
In addition to the humanitarian imperative, the prolonged failure to provide speedy and impartial justice to these thousands of adivasi under-trials is damaging the prospects for peace in India’s heartland – by leading adivasis to feel that the Indian government does not treat them as full citizens and by intensifying their generalized sense of alienation. It is telling that in the widely publicized “Collector abduction” incidents of Chhatisgarh and Odisha, one of the major demands raised by the insurgents was speedy and fair trial for these thousands of jailed adivasis, accused of being Naxalites/Maoists. Yet, virtually none of the efforts belatedly agreed to by the state governments – such as the ‘High-powered Committee for review of the cases of Adivasi undertrials in Chhattisgarh’, set up in mid-2012 under the aegis of Nirmala Buch, the former top IAS officer – have come to fruition or been acted on to any degree by the concerned governments.
More than anything else, the failure to ensure justice for the adivasis is a grave blot on India’s human rights record. Not only are we as a nation committed to democracy and human rights, but our Constitution provides extensive safeguards and rights to the adivasis that are being violated by not ensuring fair and speedy trials for these thousands of adivasi under-trials.
On every count – whether humanitarian or strategic – it is imperative that this prolonged failure to assure our country’s adivasis of speedy, impartial justice be set right immediately.
Justice is in everyone’s interest.
Hence, we the undersigned, a large group of concerned Indians – including adivasi leaders, jurists and lawyers, and public intellectuals – urge the Union Government, the concerned State Governments, and the Supreme Court to undertake to appoint a special Commission of eminent jurists to oversee dedicated fast-track courts that hear these cases speedily and impartially.
Sincerely,
- V.R. Krishna Iyer, former Justice of the Supreme Court of India, and Mahasweta Devi, writer and activist
- Swami Agnivesh, activist
- Nandita Das, actor and director
- Nitin Desai, former UN Under-Secretary General
- G.N. Devy, literary critic and adivasi-rights activist
- Jean Dreze, economist
- Siddharth Dube, writer
- Gladson Dungdung, General Secretary, Jharkhand Human Rights Movement
- Anand Grover, senior advocate, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health
- Ramachandra Guha, historian
- Girish Karnad, playwright and director
- Manish Kunjam, CPI leader and former MLA from Bastar
- Harsh Mander, activist and writer
- Vinod Mehta, editorial chairman, Outlook
- Arvind Netam, former Union Minister and MP from Bastar
- Rajinder Sachar, former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court and UN Special Rapporteur
- B.D. Sharma, former Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
- Ramesh Sharma, Ekta Parishad
- Nandini Sundar, sociologist
- Father Stan Swamy, activist
- Tarun Tejpal, editor in chief, Tehelka
- Mukti Prakash Tirkey, editor in chief, Dalit Adivasi Dunia
- Aadiyog, Lucknow.
- Pushpa Achanta
- Maharukh Adenwalla, lawyer and rights activist
- Alok Agrawal, Narmada Bachao Andolan.
- Ramesh Agrawal, Jan Chetna Manch
- S. Anand, Publisher, Navayana
- Ali Asghar
- Ramani Atkuri, activist
- Seema Azad, Dastak, Lucknow
- Lallan Baghel, Chandigarh
- Lal Bahadur, artist
- Anand Balasubramanyam
- Gautam Bandopadhyay, Nadi Ghati Morcha
- Moushumi Basu, New Delhi
- Amit Bhaduri, professor emeritus, JNU
- Madhu Bhaduri, Ambassador of India, retired
- Vimal Bhai, NAPM
- Ajay Bharadwaj, New Delhi
- Sudha Bharadwaj, PUCL Chhattisgarh
- Rustom Bharucha, writer
- Vinay Bhat, management consultant
- Bela Bhatia, TISS
- Suresh Bhatt
- M. Bharath Bhushan
- Prashant Bhushan, Supreme Court advocate
- Praful Bidwai, Durgabai Deshmukh Chair, Council for Social Development
- Nisha Biswas, scientist
- Priyanka Borpujari, journalist
- Rahul Bose, actor
- P.A. Chacko
- Shubha Chacko
- Indira Chakravarthi, Public Health Researcher
- Uma Chakravarti, professor of history
- Nirmal Chandra, IIM, Kolkata
- Rajyashree Chandra, Visiting Fellow, CSDS.
- Uma V Chandru
- Indrani Chatterjee, historian
- Yug Mohit Chaudhary
- Shoma Chaudhury, managing editor, Tehelka
- Anuradha Chenoy, JNU
- Kamal Chenoy, JNU
- Gowru Chinappa, PUCL Bangalore
- Arati Chokshi
- Chitrangada Choudhury, journalist
- Maria Aurora Couto, writer
- Dilip D' Souza, writer
- Ajay Dandekar, Central University, Gujarat
- Lalita Das
- Mamata Dash
- Tushar Dash, Vasundhara
- Siddhartha Deb, writer
- Aditi Desai, social anthropologist
- Kartik Desai, activist
- Sagar Dhara
- Arundhati Dhuru
- Gabrielle Dietrich, Penmurimai Iyakkam
- Bernard D'Mello
- Madhumita Dutta
- Meher Engineer, independent scientist
- Shailesh Gandhi, RTI activist and former Central Information Commissioner
- Tanushree Gangopadhyay, journalist
- Manan Ganguli, UK
- Subhash Gatade, New Socialist Initiative
- Goldy George, Dalit Mukti Morcha
- Shalini Gera, activist
- Ravinder Goel, Delhi University
- Shankar Gopalkrishnan, Campaign for Survival and Dignity
- Ashish Gupta, CDRO, New Delhi
- Ananth Guruswamy, Amnesty International India
- Kaveri Indira, Bangalore
- Shamsul Islam, Delhi University
- Ravikiran Jain, Senior Advocate, Allahabad
- Jasveen Jairath, HAMDS, Hyderabad
- Vasundhara Jairath
- Smarajit Jana, Sonagachi Research and Training Institute
- Nityanand Jayaraman, Chennai
- Prakash Jha, film director
- Rajeev Jhaveri
- Chidambaram K, Advocate
- Sudhir Kakar, psychoanalyst and scholar
- Katharina Poggendorf-Kakar, scholar
- Vibha Kamat
- Mira Kamdar, author
- Pralay Kanungo, JNU
- Amar Kanwar, New Delhi.
- D.W. Karuna, researcher
- Suvir Kaul, A. M. Rosenthal Professor, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania
- Poonam Kaushik, advocate
- Shashant Kela, writer
- Sanober Keshawar, TISS
- Lateef Mohammed Khan
- Suman Khurana
- Suhas Kolhekar, NAPM
- Puneet Kohli, Berkeley Law, University of California, Berkeley
- Kavita Krishnan, AIPWA
- Arun Kumar, economist
- Himanshu Kumar, activist
- Madhuresh Kumar, NAPM
- Sushil Kumar
- Vikram Lal, Common Cause
- Jinee Lokaneeta
- Ania Loomba, Catherine Bryson Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania
- Madhuri, Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan
- Kamayani Bali Mahabal
- George Mathew
- Madhu Mehra, lawyer
- Kalpana Mehta
- Ketan Mehta, film director
- Nivedita Menon, scholar
- Raza Mir, Professor of Management, Cotsakos College of Business, William Paterson University
- Saeed Mirza, film director
- Pankaj Mishra, writer
- Anurag Modi, Shramik Adivasi Sangathan
- Shamim Modi
- Gautam Mody, NTUI
- Sujata Mody
- Mrituinjoy Mohanty, IIM Kolkata.
- Aunohita Mojumdar, journalist
- Roger Moody
- Vipul Mudgal, journalist
- Madhusree Mukherjeee
- Laxmi Murthy
- Arundati Nag
- Sankara Narayanan
- Karthik Navayan
- Sharanya Nayak, HUMANE, Koraput
- Govind Nihalani, film director
- Anjali Noronha, educationist
- Felix Padel
- Sandeep Pandey
- Jonathan Parry
- Pujya Pascal
- Pravin Patel, Tribal Welfare Society
- Shashibhushan Pathak, Jharkhand
- Sudhir Pattnaik
- Shiraz Bulsara Prabhu, Kashtakari Sanghatana
- Jyoti Punwani, journalist
- Sharmila Purakayastha
- N. Raghuram, Indraprastha University
- Prashant Rahi, Committee for Release of Political Prisoners
- SS Rajgopalan
- Sudha Ramalingam, PUCL, Tamilnadu
- K. Babu Rao
- Nandini Rao
- Ramdas Rao, PUCL, Karnataka
- Rosemary, Nagaland University
- Ashim Roy, New Trade Union Initiative
- Dunu Roy
- Kirity Roy, MASUM, West Bengal
- Anil Sadgopal, educationist
- Rajendra K Sail, former President, Chhattisgarh PUCL
- Madhu Sarin
- Lt. Col. Deepak Sarkar
- Surajit Sarkar
- PA Sebastian, advocate
- Rakhi Sehgal, trade unionist
- Sukla Sen
- Sunanda Sen, economist
- Geeta Seshu
- Meena Saraswathi Seshu, Center for Advocacy on Stigma and Marginalisation
- Teesta Setalvaad, human rights campaigner
- Piyush Sethia
- Kiran Shaheen, journalist
- Neelima Sharma, artist
- Aruna Shekhar
- Snehal Shingavi, assistant professor of English, university of Texas, Austin
- Abhay Shukla
- SP Shukla, Former Commerce Secretary
- Dilip Simeon, historian and activist
- Anurag Singh, Janmadhyam
- Dayanita Singh, photographer
- Jagmohan Singh, AFDR, Punjab
- Mahipal Singh, PUCL Delhi
- Ramneek Singh
- Ujwal Kumar Singh, Delhi University
- Satya Sivaraman
- Kavita Srivastava, PUCL.
- Sunilam
- Pyoli Swatija, advocate
- Tarun Tahiliani, fashion designer
- Anuradha Talwar, Paschim Bang Khet Majdoor Samiti
- Ashwini Tambe, Associate Professor, Dept. of Women’s Studies, University of Maryland-College Park
- Shivani Taneja, educationist
- Dolly Thakore, stage actress
- Ulag Thyagarajan
- Rajive Tiwari
- Nilita Vachani, writer and film-maker
- Minnie Vaid
- Rahul Varman, IIT Kanpur
- Aniruddhan Vasudevan, activist
- Velerian
- Kamala Visweswaran, associate professor, University of Texas, Austin
- Major Gen. (Retd.) SG Vombatkere
- Brahma Prakash Yadav, advocate