Jai Singh, a mentally ill person arrested on a charge of murder, has spent the past 28 years as an undertrial, much of the time in a mental hospital in Amritsar.
PRACHI PINGLAY SIDDHARTH NARRAIN in AmbalaDRESSED in hospital blue, lean, grey-haired Jai Singh is lost in his own world. He says little and shows no emotion, nothing to indicate that he has spent the last 28 years as an undertrial, most of the time at the Vidyasagar Institute of Mental Health, Amritsar.
In March 1976, Jai Singh, a resident of Bubkar village in Yamunanagar district of Haryana, was arrested by the police and charged with the murder of his mother. On the request of his family, the Additional Sessions Judge sent him to the Institute of Mental Health to verify if he was fit to stand trial. Although diagnosed as suffering from depression, he was put in the Ambala Jail and was transferred to the Institute of Mental Health in Amritsar on May 10, 1979. Later he was diagnosed as having chronic schizophrenia.
Since then he has never left the premises of the hospital. His file has been consigned to the record room, waiting for him to be declared fit to stand trial. Still unfit to defend himself, Jai Singh has spent 28 years in confinement, without being produced in court.
ACCORDING to his family, Jai Singh's mother died because of an accident. Maya Devi, his wife, said: "One day, in a fit of madness Jai Singh hit me. I fell and hurt myself. Seeing this, my mother-in-law rushed to help me. But she had a heart attack and fell on a heap of bricks." Hukum Chand, Jai Singh's younger brother, said: "We took Maya Devi to hospital after the incident for treatment. She was pregnant then. So when our mother suffered a heart attack there was no one to attend to her."
Jai Singh's family first suspected that he was mentally ill in 1970, three years after he got married. His father, Atma Ram, then took him to the Institute of Mental Health for treatment. Hukum Chand said: "At that time he was not mentally sound. He did not know what he was doing."
Since 1976, Atma Ram wrote several letters to the Superintendent of the Ambala Jail, the Institute of Mental Health, the police, the judiciary and even the Health Minister requesting them to transfer his son to a centre "where he could be cured of his mental disease". Later he requested Jai Singh's transfer from the Institute of Mental Health to a hospital in Rohtak, Haryana, which is much closer to their home in Yamunanagar. Atma Ram, in these letters, described how difficult it was to visit the Institute of Mental Health in Amritsar, especially in the atmosphere of terrorist violence in Punjab after 1984. Maya Devi started writing similar letters after Atma Ram passed away.
Although nothing was said about Jai Singh's transfer, there was once a possibility of his release on security. Dr. B.L. Goyal, Director of the Institute of Mental Health, recalled that the Sessions Judge, Kurukshetra, had offered release on security before consigning the file to the record room in 1982. Goyal said: "It was suggested to the accused that he apply to be released on security till he be cured of the mental illness but none came forward on behalf of the accused."
Although none came forward to offer security at the time, the family made many efforts to meet him. Hukum Chand complained about the hostile attitude of the authorities of the Institute of Mental Health: "They would not let us meet Jai Singh. They would ask us to wait for many hours and after much pleading would allow us to see him only for five to ten minutes. It was every difficult to travel to Amritsar from Yamunanagar. And if they did not let us meet him, it would cost us lots to stay there."
Meanwhile, his condition worsened and he began to suffer from chronic schizophrenia. He became more withdrawn and would rarely talk. Dr. Goyal said: "Jai Singh has never been a violent patient or a nuisance. He is withdrawn and lost in his world of fantasies and has lost contact with reality. He will not demand food. He will eat and sleep only if he is asked to."
When Frontline visited him at the Institute of Mental Health, Jai Singh did not respond to basic questions like the name of his village. He stared ahead, oblivious of the questions being put to him. The only time he gave a spontaneous answer was when he said he wanted to go home.
According to the authorities of the Institute of Mental Health, reports on the mental condition of Jai Singh were sent regularly to the Additional Sessions Judge, Kurukshetra, and the Superintendent of the Central Jail, Ambala. Dr. Goyal is also ready to vouch for Jai Singh. "I can give a written guarantee that he is not violent."
RAKSHA RANI, a chronic schizophrenic, was released after nearly 20 years in judicial custody. A resident of Alorakh village in Sangrur district of Punjab, she was arrested in 1983 for allegedly murdering her husband Hardayal Singh. She was admitted to the Institute of Mental Health for treatment in 1984. She gave birth to a girl, Meenu, while in judicial custody.
She was discharged in October 1984 and readmitted in 1985 for one year. After declaring her fit for trial, the Sessions Court convicted and sentenced her to life imprisonment in 1987. She challenged the order in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which set aside the conviction and ordered a retrial in November 1988. Although the Punjab government went on appeal in the Supreme Court, it did not pursue the matter.
Meanwhile, in December 1994, Raksha Rani was sent to Nari Niketan, Amritsar, a shelter house for female destitutes. Later she was sent to jail several times but was finally brought back to the Institute of Mental Health for treatment. In 2002, the Punjab and Haryana High Court took suo motu cognisance of the case after a report on her appeared in The Hindu. Following this the Punjab government dropped all charges against Raksha Rani and the court released her in late 2002, 20 years after her arrest.
While considering the acquittal of Raksha Rani, the court asked for reports on the status of all mentally ill undertrials in Punjab. These reports included Jai Singh's as well, but nothing came out of it. Jai Singh's case was not taken up until October 2003, when Justice A.S. Anand, the Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), on a visit to the Ambala Jail, came across the case and asked the Superintendent of the jail to send the details of undertrials in the jail to the Commission.
The NHRC's Special Rapporteur, who visited Ambala to collect more information on undertrails, said in his findings: "While the file moved, we have no information available about the treatment of undertrial prisoner Jai Singh between 5.5.76 and 10.5.79 and, even later on, he appears to have been reduced to a number and forgotten." It added: "Even at the slowest possible speed his trial would not have taken more than 10 years and he would have become eligible for release after actual incarceration of 14 and total imprisonment of 20 years including remission. His continued status as an undertrial prisoner is a sad comment on our criminal justice system."
On the orders of the NHRC, an intervention petition asking for the quashing of the first information report (FIR) against Jai Singh has been filed in the case that is going on in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Says Manmohan Lal Sarin, the advocate in the case: "The NHRC is intervening in the High Court petition that deals with the larger question of the plight of mentally ill undertrials in Punjab."
As of now Jai Singh's case remains stuck in a legal and systemic tangle. His file will be in the record room, with hundreds of other closed files, until he is declared fit for trial. The hospital cannot do anything until it gets the court orders to free him, on bail, on security or on the dropping of charges. Although the family has tried several times for his transfer from Amritsar to Rohtak, it has not applied for bail.
The medical report sent by Medical Officer, Ambala Jail, in September 1976 said Jai Singh's "is a case of depression... starts irrelevant (sic) talks about his family every time (sic), and suddenly stops talking and does not speak for two days. Not violent..." Twenty-eight years later, his medical condition has not changed. Nor has his status as an undertrial.
