Madhya Pradesh judge's healing trail from courtroom to jail

BHOPAL: On March 14, the additional sessions judge (ADJ) of Raisen district court sentenced one Kailash Sahu to seven years imprisonment for misappropriating over 100 quintals of government grains. Immediately after the ruling, Sahu was shifted to Barelli jail in Raisen.

The same evening, to the surprise of Sahu and others at the facility, the ADJ who convicted him turned up. The judge met the jail staff and asked about the facilities provided to the convicts. Before leaving the jail, he met Sahu, wished him luck, and asked him to turn his life around. He also left a note in the visitor’s diary of the jail.

Vijay Chandra, the judge in question, has been doing this for many years. A former secretary of the Madhya Pradesh Human Rights Commission (MPHRC), he says that he feels morally obliged to see that the person convicted by him lives in reasonable comfort in jail and that she/he does not bear any ill will against the state or the judicial system for the punishment meted out to him. “Getting convicted doesn’t mean the person loses his or her basic human rights. I have taken keen interest in living conditions of those jailed since I was a magistrate and used to visit prisons,” Chandra told TOI.

Masroof Shah (40), a resident of Baadi town in Raisen, was sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment in 2014 by Chandra. “A day after, the judge who convicted Shah came to meet him in the jail and examined the condition of his barrack and other facilities,” said a prison officer wishing anonymity. “It is a very sensitive and humane approach on the part of the judiciary. Their concern will always help the jail department to ensure that convicts and undertrials get basic facilities as per the rules. I have worked with Vijay Chandra in the state human rights commission and I am very happy to witness his initiative,” says Sushovan Banerjee, ADG (Jail).

Chandra would often supply books, and even emotionally comfort those he had convicted. “Moquito menace, water problems, bad food – these are things which I often point out to jail authorities. Often, I might not have been greeted with open arms by the person against whom I passed a sentence a few hours ago, but eventually they would understand that I was seeking their good,” the judge said. In a note he wrote at the Bareli jail’s visitor’s diary (dated 14/03/2016), Judge Chandra said, ”The new convicts are naturally sad but happy to see judges with them inside the jail. This is the true meaning and spirit of human rights. It’s a divine experience.”