Parliament Watch: 76% of prisoners in Indian jails are undertrials; 3.6% conviction rate in UAPA cases

Parliament on Tuesday saw replies to questions on undertrial prisoners, URLs blocked by the Central government and also on convictions and arrests under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA)..In response to a question in the Lok Sabha to the Ministry of Home Affairs, it was revealed that only 176 persons have been convicted out of 4,890 arrested under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) between 2019 and 2021. That translates to a mere 3.6% conviction rate over the past three years.At the end of 2021, 3,998 cases were pending investigation. 2,041 of these have been pending for over three years.The following table shows, State/UT-wise, details of cases pending investigation under UAPA during 2019-2021..To a question by BSP MP Shyam Singh Yadav, it was revealed that as on December 31, 2021, there were 5,54,034 prisoners in the country's prisons. Out of these, 76% or 4,27,165 are awaiting trial. Globally, 34% prisoners are awaiting trial..Revealing statistics on undertials in Uttar Pradesh, the response stated,"As on 31st December, 2021, there were 90,606 undertrial prisoners in the State of Uttar Pradesh. Out of these, 21,942 belonged to Scheduled Caste (SC) community, 4,657 belonged to Scheduled Tribe (ST) community and 41,678 belonged to Other Backward Class (OBC)...".BJP MP Tejasvi Surya sought to know from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting instances whether the government has taken suo motu notice of objectionable content on social media platforms and the number of directions issued to block and suspend channels, URLs etc. during the last ten years.It was revealed that during the last ten years, the Ministry has directed the blocking of 104 YouTube news channels, 45 videos and 25 social media accounts of digital news publishers.From October 2013 to October 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has directed blocking of 30,417 user-generated URLs, including webpages, websites, posts and accounts on social media platforms..CPI MP Advocate AM Ariff sought details of crimes against people belonging to Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in the country during each of the last four years and the current year.Between 2018 and 2021, across the country, 1,89,945 and 31,172 cases were registered under crimes against people belong to Scheduled Castes and people belonging to Scheduled Tribes respectively.The following table provides the details, State/UT-wise:.The highest number of crimes against the SC community in 2021 was recorded in Uttar Pradesh (13,146). Madhya Pradesh recorded the most crimes against the ST community in 2021 (2,627)..Tamil Nadu MP D Ravikumar sought to know from the Home Ministry whether the government proposes to bring crimes of caste terrorism under the purview of the National Investigation Agency (NIA).He also asked whether the government proposes to issue any advisory to state governments to invoke the UAPA for crimes committed against people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.The reply stated that the government was not considering such proposals.