FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
The basic rule may perhaps be tersely put as bail, not jail,” Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer said in a 1977 judgment, one of many landmark verdicts to his name. He was interpreting Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees an individual’s right to liberty, to explain why detention should not be the norm.
Undertrials—those hauled off to jail for suspected violation of the law but innocent until proven guilty—bear the brunt of our dysfunctional criminal justice system. India currently has 330,487 undertrials in
