Surrender in 15 days: Supreme Court to convicts freed during Covid pandemic
A bench of justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar said, “Now when the Covid-19 situation has been normalized, all those prisoners/inmates/undertrial prisoners/convicts who are/were released on emergency parole/interim bail have to surrender before the concerned prison authorities.”
The Supreme Court on Friday directed that the prisoners released on emergency parole during the Covid-19 pandemic in order to avoid overcrowding in jails have to surrender within 15 days.
The prisoners were released in a suo moto proceeding initiated by the court during the first wave of the pandemic in March 2020 to avoid the spread of pandemic in the jails. To facilitate the release, the court had constituted a high-powered committee on whose recommendation the prisoners were released. The committee determined the category of prisoners to be granted bail or parole and the conditions to be fixed for their release.
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With almost three years having gone up, an application was moved by the director general (prisons), Delhi seeking an order from court, directing the released prisoners to surrender back to prison. Although a similar order to surrender was issued by the court in June 2022, the DG (prisons) had informed the court that out of 3,630 undertrials and 751 convicts released on interim bail or emergency parole, 680 convicts and 3,365 undertrials were yet to surrender.
A bench of justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar said, “Now when the Covid-19 situation has been normalized, all those prisoners/inmates/undertrial prisoners/convicts who are/were released on emergency parole/interim bail have to surrender before the concerned prison authorities.”
The order further stated, “All those under trials/convicts who have been released on emergency parole/interim bail pursuant to the recommendation of the high-powered committee...have to surrender before the concerned prison authorities within 15 days.”
The court directed the concerned jail authorities to convey the order to all prisoners or inmates and allowed the released prisoners to apply for bail or suspension of sentence after surrender. The court also directed the competent trial court to decide on the bail or suspension of sentence applications on its own merits.
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The DG(prisons) represented by additional solicitor general (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati informed the court that by the March 23, 2020 order, a total of 1,184 convicts and 3,499 undertrials were released. Thereafter, seeing the surge of the second wave of pandemic, the court passed another order in May 2021 extending the period of release by another three months.
After the June 2022 order when the first order to surrender was passed by court, 71 convicts and 267 undertrials surrendered voluntarily. While considering the application of DG(prisons) the court noted that those out on bail/parole were not released on merits but due to the extraordinary situation to contain the spread of the pandemic by preventing overcrowding in prisons. Moreover, the bench noted that the Covid situation had normalised as on date.
