Story in numbers: 3 in 4 prisoners in Indian jails await trial, shows data

India has 371,848 prisoners in pre-trial detention, colloquially referred to as undertrials.

As many as 76 per cent, or three in four, of all prisoners in Indian jails are awaiting trial. This compares poorly with the global average of 34 per cent.

On the metric of the percentage of undertrials, India ranks second, next only to Bangladesh, among the 54 Commonwealth countries, according to a June 2022 Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) report on pre-trial detentions.

Globally, India ranks sixth, after Liechtenstein (91.7 per cent), San Marino (88.9 per cent), Haiti (81.9 per cent), Gabon (80.2 per cent), and Bangladesh (80 per cent).

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