SC directs HCs to submit detailed reports of undertrial cases

New Delhi, Feb 13 (UNI) The Supreme Court today directed the registrar generals of all High Courts in the country to submit within six weeks reports giving details of all the undertrials whose cases have not been posted for hearing for years and also of those who have been sent to mental asylum.

The directions were issued by a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices P K Balasubramanyan and D K Jain. The court had taken suo motu cognisance of UNI reports published in the leading newspapers that a man named Ramjeevan Yadav has been in a Uttar Pradesh jail for 38 long years without trial. Another petition was that of Machal Lalung from Asom who was in mental asylum for more than last 50 years.

When the amicus curiae Senior Counsel Vijay Hansaria asked for compensation for Yadav as has been done in case of Lalung the court said it will examine the same later.

Both were released on bail by the apex court and even their case files were not traceable. When Lalung, who was arrested in 1951, went to his village after having been released from the mental hospital, he could not recognise his village and nobody in the village could recognise him. Same was the case with Yadav whose own son could not recognise his father when he returned to his village in Faizabad.

Both were kept in mental hospitals and trial never started. They lost their youth as well as mental balance during their endless incarceration which ended only when mediapersons happened to detect them and exposed the colossal callousness of the administration.

While Lalung had been given compensation of Rs three lakhs, Yadav is yet to get the same.

UNI