Indian states ordered to link prisons with courts through video conferencing

The India's federal government has asked its states to link their prisons with courts through video conferencing for speedy trial and to save costs of transporting undertrials to courts, officials said Tuesday.

The directive has come from country's Home Ministry.

"Prison e-system should be integrated with crime and criminal tracking network and systems as well as e-courts on priority basis," an official quoting the order said. "It also stresses upon combined training of prison, police, health department and judiciary on undertrial management should be conducted periodically."

Thousands of people are currently languishing in jails across India, much to the capacity of prisons.

Sixty-seven percent of the people in Indian jails are undertrials -- people not convicted of any crime and currently on trial in a court of law, a report on "Prison Statistics India 2015" released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) last year said.

The government has to spend a huge amount of money for ferrying undertrials to courts. Endit