Seventy per cent of India’s prison population consists of people who have not yet been found guilty, Supreme Court Justice Vikram Nath said on Friday, calling for urgent reform in the way legal aid and undertrial detention are handled.

He noted that most undertrials remain behind bars not because the law mandates it, but because the system has failed them.

“There are undertrials who have spent time in prison exceeding the maximum sentence for the very offence they are accused of. There are undertrials charged with bailable offences who remain in custody simply because they could not furnish bail. There are undertrials who would have been acquitted or given suspended sentences had their trials concluded promptly, yet they continue to languish.”

Justice Nath was speaking at NALSAR Unive

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