A view of the Supreme Court of India, in New Delhi. FIle
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
The Supreme Court has issued a slew of directions to ensure that undertrial prisoners who have got bail, but are too poor to furnish surety and bail bonds, are released within seven days.
The apex court has even suggested granting “temporary bail” to undertrial prisoners so that they can go out and arrange for bail bonds and sureties.
The order by a Bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul came in the wake of a National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) report in January that about 5,000 undertrial prisoners were in jail despite courts granting them bail. They were either accused in multiple cases, or were simply too impoverished to comply with the bail conditions.
Amicus curiae, advocate Gaurav Agrawal, said that 2,357 of these 5,000 prisoners were provided legal assistance and 1,417 were released, but the fundamental violation of the right to personal liberty of prisoners continues.
Digital changes
Mr. Agrawal said that meetings have been held with the Home Ministry, the NALSA and the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to devise changes in the e-prison software used in 1,300 prisons across the country, so that these prisoners are digitally recognised as a separate category called “bailed-out-but-not-released”.
Agreeing with the urgency shown in the NALSA report and Mr. Agrawal’s suggestions, the apex court has issued seven directions to ensure that no bailed-out undertrial prisoner suffers prison due to poverty.
For one, the Bench directed that courts should send soft copies of bail orders to the prison authorities on the same or the next day.
The Jail Superintendent should record the date of the bail in the e-prisons software, the Bench added. The prison authorities should then inform the district legal services authorities (DLSA) concerned if an undertrial prisoner is not released within seven days of the grant of bail. The DLSA would depute a volunteer or an advocate to visit the jail and “assist the prisoner in all ways possible for his release”.
‘Temporary bail’
The NIC would “make attempts” to create separate fields in the e-prison software to record the date of grant of bail and the date of release. An automatic mail should be sent to the Secretary, DLSA, if a prisoner is not released in seven days.
Paralegal volunteers or probation officers would enquire into the economic condition of such prisoners and place it before the courts with a request to relax bail conditions.
The Bench directed that courts, in appropriate cases, could grant prisoners “temporary bail” so that they could arrange for sureties and bail bonds.
In cases in which bail bonds were not furnished within one month of bail, the court concerned “may suo motu take up the case and consider whether the conditions of bail require modification/relaxation”.
The Bench said that courts need not insist on local sureties, as ready availability of them have often been a cause of delay in releasing bailed prisoners.