CJI Sanjiv Khanna bats for a humane justice system, reforming courts

New Delhi, Dec 10: Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna on Tuesday batted for a compassionate and humane justice system by decolonisation of laws and reformation of criminal courts.

The CJI, who was speaking on the occasion of the celebration of Human Rights Day programme organised by National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) said human rights were inalienable.

He termed human rights as the bedrock of human society, imperative to ensure global peace.

“This brings us to the most important question. The question is, call for a compassionate and humane justice. How do we ensure this? How do we promote this in our legal system? Criminal courts are the areas which require a lot of emphasis. This requires a lot of reform. The laws require a change. We have decriminalised a number of laws, but a lot of work is still in progress,” he said.

CJI Khanna flagged the issue of overcrowding in jails and said undertrial prisoners exceeded the total capacity of prisoners.

Sharing figures, he said the national capacity of under trials was 4.36 lakh but at present, about 5.19 lakh prisoners were lodged in prisons.

“So overcrowding particularly affects the undertrials, it severs ties with the society. Such disconnect pushes them into a spiral of criminalisation and making reintegration a challenging task,” he said.

Terming Section 479 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita dealing with the maximum period for which an undertrial prisoner can be detained as a “progressive” and a “significant” step, the CJI said it adopted a human-centric approach and allowed first time offenders to be released if they had spent one-third of their potential maximum punishment period in custody.

“It acknowledges the crucial reality that prolonged trial detention affects the presumption of innocence, while trapping individuals, especially those from marginalised backgrounds in deepening cycles of disadvantage and societal alienation,” said the CJI, who is also NALSA’s patron-in-chief.

The programme was attended by Minister of state for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal, executive chairman of NALSA Justice B R Gavai and Justice Surya Kant, chairman of the Supreme Court Legal Service Committee.

Several other judges from the apex court, the Delhi High Court and trial court attended the function.

CJI Khanna in his address quoted President Droupadi Murmu and cited the need to counter the “blackcoat system” arising due to a deep-seated fear and sense of alienation among the common man towards the criminal justice system.

He launched a “Special Campaign for Old Prisoners and Terminally-ill Prisoners” of the NALSA, which is a three-month long campaign to be carried out through legal services institutions across the country from December 10 to March 10, 2025.

He said the underlying objective of this campaign was to expedite the release of the elderly and terminally-ill prisoners by providing them effective legal aid services, keeping in mind the individual vulnerabilities and needs of such prisoners.

Referring to the conditions in criminal courts and advocating for reforms in the system, CJI Khanna said while a rich person was not affected if he appeared in a court, a rickshaw puller’s life and livelihood was affected if he spent a day in court.

He said the most difficult courts in Delhi pertained to traffic challans.

“The reason was, we have enhanced traffic challans. Yes, they were required to be enhanced to make punishments severe, but the impact thereof is mostly felt by the most vulnerable, the ones who are self earning, who have taken the vehicles on EMI, they are self employed. They employ others and the moment their vehicle is impounded and the fine of Rs 5,000 or Rs 6,000 is imposed every month, he is down. He’s not able to pay his EMIs. He’s not able to look after, take care of his children,” he said.

Justice Gavai in his address said NALSA’s focus was to empower citizens and to make justice accessible to them even in the country’s remote locations.

“This is crucial because on an average, poor persons are arrested every year across the country, a large majority of these individuals are unaware of their rights, including their right to the presence of a lawyer at interrogation or to know the grounds of their arrest or to contact their family members,” he said.