HARIHAR RAI Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It was a normal day as any in the town of Samastipur. The dirty roads were covered with dust, pedestrins and vehicles of all soils and Wintage. People were going for their normal vocation. As morning sun rose to its High noon, anxiety seem to have started casting shadows over the city by rumours filtering out from the Samastipur Jail where high drama was being enacted Even then the humanity in the city appeared to be intriguingly non -chalant. The year was not 1931 or 1941 but was 1981 being the 14th of January after India broke the Imperial shackles and was a Gandhian republic. The place, however, was the legacy from the British Raj What happened within those walls was a replay of what was the normal frequent drama played before 1947 in this country. The dramatis personae involved were also the same with changed faces. The inmates of the Samastipur Jail, it is not clear whether they were convicts or undertrials or common in of both, had climbed the roof of the building protesting against the subhuman treatment being meted out to them by the authorities of the jail. The protestors were following the precept of the great martyrs of India, who were entirely nonviolent expressing a desire and waiting hopefully, to meet the minister for jails who, they thought, would be available as a messiah to ameliorate their condition. The inmates were on the roof of the building for two days undaunted by the cold winter night which they faced with fortitude.

(2.) Discipline, however, had to be maintained and the persons within the high walls had to be silenced because they were out caste of the society, a situation for which they were themselves responsible even though the administration within the jail was undoubtedly flawed by non -observance of basic human values and in utter derogation of the rules relating to the rights of the inmates of the jail. Patently, their situation was, therefore, according to them, akin to what the poet has said :

(3.) It may be stated here that the petitioner complainant had been forwarded to jail custody in a case by a Judicial Magistrate of Samastipur, and was a new entrant. His plea of mercy was granted only after several lives had been taken.