Extraditing the rich & bent

THE safest course for the well heeled is to flee abroad after committing a major financial crime. The Modi government has thrown in even the kitchen sink to bring back a few of the expatriate bent brigade; this extra effort is meant to compensate for lack of any visible success in bringing back black money parked abroad. But its exertions to extradite the Vijay Mallyas and Lalit Modis have floundered at the gates of the British judicial system; now a British judge has refused to send alleged bookie Sanjeev Kumar Chawla to India after an expert could cite “unsafe, inhuman and degrading” conditions in Delhi’s Tihar jail. The same court is also handling Vijay Mallya’s extradition which comes up for hearing next month. Embarrassingly, the British judge has quoted chapter and verse the Indian Supreme Court’s inability to set the system right.

Little will be gained by citing the British treatment of prisoners that have triggered prison riots in the past or their gross violation of international covenants by abducting people from other countries as part of their so-called war on terror. At home, the picture of Indian jails that emerges is stark. For all the claims made by publicity-conscious police officers like Kiran Bedi, the changes in prisons during their tenures were cosmetic, ad hoc and facile. 

Prisons all over the country are overcrowded by over 150 per cent and the unnatural death rate of prisoners unerringly crosses the 100 mark year after year. The attitude of the authorities towards prisoners is unlikely to change. This is because the focus is on retribution and deterrence which invariably leads to brutality and callousness instead of reform and rehabilitation. There can be little hope for reform without changing the basic approach towards prisoners as well as speeding up the justice system — 68 per cent of those jailed are undertrials. It is not just about Mallya. The government owes it to its citizens to guarantee a life of dignity even if they are incarcerated. It does not require a British judge to point this out.