Law students visit jail to offer free aid ………..Swati Deshpande I TNN
Mumbai: Around noon on Wednesday, a few prisoners filed out of Arthur Road Jail. They were escorted by policemen for their visit to a court for a remand date or trial.
Around the same time, a group of 20-odd law students trooped inside along with sessions judge M N Chavan. They too were complying with court orders. The students who gained entry immediately got onto the job and quizzed the 44 murder convicts serving their life sentences there.
The students who were from G J Advani Law College in Bandra and K C Law College were taken to the quadrangle inside surrounded by barracks that housed 3,000 inmates, including underworld dons. The task as entrusted by the Bombay high court was to offer free legal aid service to poor convicts who have undergone a substantial part of their sentence and were eligible for a remission and release by the government. Most had spent over 12 years inside and had no lawyers and were not aware of free legal aid.
If it was a hardened criminal that the students expected to see, they were in for a surprise. The convicts who wore a belt buckle engraved with convict overseer stood to attention in their coarse white shirts and yellow pants. They were all warders and watchmen supplementing the jail force and maintaining discipline in the crowded barracks.
Our confidence is gone, so is our will power, said a convict who had served out 18 years continuously without even availing of his 15-day furlough per year. He was picked up in 1989 from Amravati after someone shot a policeman outside his dhaba. When the Supreme Court too dismissed his appeal, his hopes were dashed but his claims of being innocent remain. Now 58 years old, he says the government should set up a committee and find out how many prisoners have been reformed and set them free.
Around him stand other murder convicts, several held guilty of killing their wife or acquaintances. Ashok Zombade is in his sixties and from Pune. He has spent more than 16 years at a stretch there. His wifes dying declaration was all it required for him to be nailed in 1993. He had no proper defence lawyer for the trial either. In 1995 the high court dismissed his appeal sent from jail but the frail man, thanks to the jailors judgment has got the less taxing job of being a warder. Applications made by several convicts for remission have received no reply from the government and several say that the innocent have been punished.
The scene is similar if not worse at the Byculla womens jail which has more male convicts (386) than women (232). There are also 33 children including a one-monthold infant.
Petty criminals and thieves abound. Chayabai Narwade, a 62-year-old in jail since 1989 for her daughterin-laws death cried saying, I want to spend my last days with my grandchildren. I have come to Mumbai for cancer treatment. She was not even aware that the government can give a remission.
Petty criminals and thieves abound. Chayabai Narwade, a 62-year-old in jail since 1989 for her daughterin-laws death cried saying, I want to spend my last days with my grandchildren. I have come to Mumbai for cancer treatment. She was not even aware that the government can give a remission.
KC student Jigna Chowdhary and Advani student Mahesh Vaswani who is its legal aid cell chief along with Tina Lewis and Kadambari came away feeling overwhelmed. The experience was humbling, educative and eye-opening.
The idea is to help the convicts and undertrials who are often ignorant and, at the same time, it will help law students hone their skills, said Vaswani. Other students present couldnt agree more.