India, Nov. 9 -- Supreme Court judge Justice Vikram Nath on Saturday said that the foundational principle that every accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty has become "far from reality" for the overwhelming majority of undertrial prisoners, who make up more than 70% of India's prison population.

The senior judge said that lakhs of people continue to languish in custody not because the law requires it, but because the criminal justice system has failed them at multiple levels. According to statistics maintained by the undertrial review committee established under a 2015 Supreme Court judgment, there are 530,333 prisoners, with undertrials accounting for 74%.

"The contradiction we are here to discuss today is that between...