HIRAMAL NAIK AND KUMESHWAR NAIK, begin each morning cleaning the premises of the Kashipur Police Station for free, and not out of their own choice. Both are in their middle ages, coming from a Dalit community in Odisha’s southwestern district of Kalahandi.
This forced work, this indignity has been imposed upon them through directions by none other than the Sessions Court in Rayagada District and the Orissa High Court, when granting them bail. Hiramal and Kumeshwar are both accused persons in the same criminal case . Under the most basic tenets of criminal justice, both must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Yet the courts have imposed forced labour as a condition of their freedom—a practice that violates both the fundamental premises of criminal justice and the constitutional prohibition against caste-based discrimination.
The constitutional framework: Criminal justice and discrimination on the basis of caste
The Constitution of India establishes critical principles that intersect in cases like the above. The criminal justice system operates on the presumption of innocence—an accused person remains innocent until guilt is proven through the process of a trial, a critical element of the principle of due process enshrined in Article 20 of the Constitution. Further, Articles 14 (equality), 15 (non-discrimination), 17 (abolition of untouchability), 21 (life and liberty), and 23 (prohibition of begar and forced labour) collectively prohibit any practice that creates social disabilities based on caste or subjects individuals to unpaid labour. *
