Indian in jail for 38 years without trial

FAIZABAD: India’s Supreme Court has asked a lower court for the details of a murder after it discovered that a man has spent 38 years in jail without a trial because police lost his papers, a lawyer said on Wednesday.

Jagjivan Ram Yadav has never had a court appearance although he has been incarcerated for nearly four decades in Faizabad town, about 150 kilometres southeast of Lucknow.

“It is inhuman to see a man languishing in jails because there is no one to pursue his case,” said I. B. Singh, convenor of lawyers group, ‘We the Citizens’, which has taken up Yadav’s cause.

The group decided to pursue the matter after his case came to light in July when a jail official sought from the court information about the status of trials of all inmates.

“This is a unique case as Jagjivan can neither be granted bail nor relieved of all charges because police are unable to present papers,” judge Lal Chandra Tripathi told a Faizabad court when the matter came up for hearing this week.

Yadav, 70, is charged with the murder of a married woman in 1968. He was arrested with 20 others in his village.

The rest were granted bail and they all seemingly forgot about him.

His family members say he is innocent and say they have been let down not only by the judicial system but also by their relatives.

“After my father was jailed in the false case, my relatives threw my mother and me out of our house. They usurped our property and we were left high and dry,” said Yadav’s son Kamlesh, who was only one-and-a-half when his father was jailed.

“My mother worked as labourer so that we could survive,” he said.

“We ran from pillar to post to tell the world that Jagjivan is innocent,” his son said. “Our pleas fell on deaf ears.”

Even the security officials at the jail are sympathetic to Yadav, who himself is baffled by media attention.—AFP