‘Only underprivileged languish in jails’: SC grants bail to 18 life convicts

The court also ordered that life convicts who have undergone imprisonment of 10 years or more be entitled to bail, while those who have stayed for more than 14 years be considered by Allahabad high court for premature release, besides being released on bail.

It is only the underprivileged people who have to languish in prisons as those belonging to the high society escape the country, the Supreme Court observed on Friday while granting bail to 18 life convicts in Uttar Pradesh.

The top court also called for some “out of the box thinking” by the Uttar Pradesh government and Allahabad high court as the state is home to 7,214 life convicts

The court also ordered that life convicts who have undergone imprisonment of 10 years or more be entitled to bail, while those who have stayed for more than 14 years be considered by Allahabad high court for premature release, besides being released on bail.

A bench of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and MM Sundresh was hearing a batch of petitions by the life convicts who pointed out that they had already carried out varying terms of punishment, ranging from 10 to 17 years but their appeals against the conviction orders were not being taken up by Allahabad high court.

Appearing for the petitioners, senior advocate Ravi Prakash Mehrotra informed the bench that two of the convicts were granted premature release under the United Provinces Prisoners Release on Probation Act 1938 while the bail order of a third one was reserved by the high court.

Allowing bail to 18 life convicts on the ground that they had already served 10 years in prison, the bench said: “People who remain in custody come from a weaker strata of society. Our experience is that all underprivileged persons remain in jail. In one case of a high society criminal, by the time he was convicted, he had skipped the country.”

The top court also called for some “out of the box thinking” by the Uttar Pradesh government and Allahabad high court as the state is home to 7,214 life convicts, who have spent more than a decade inside jail and nearly 183,000 appeals from them are pending in the high court.

“Is there no reformative process possible? We know the high court is hearing the criminal appeals of the 1980s while the Madras high court, where we both had the occasion to be a part of the bench, is taking up appeals of 2020. Some out of the box thinking is needed by Allahabad high court to solve this issue,” the judges said.

The court also directed the state government and the high court to segregate the life convicts into two categories – those who have been in prison for over 14 years and are not repeat offenders, and those who have been serving prison terms of 10 to 14 years, for grant of bail.

On the first category, the bench said: “We call upon the state and high court to prepare a list of such cases where the convicts have served 14 years sentence or more and for one reason or the other, their appeal is not being heard. Let those cases be put before the advisory/sentence review board (for premature release). They can be granted bail in one go.”

In such cases, the convicts may not be interested in pursuing appeal if there is a high possibility of release, the court said.

For the second category, the court said “convicts who have served sentences of 10 years and above, their cases can be considered for grant of bail pending hearing of their appeal”.

“Now, we have said even with a 10-year sentence, life convicts are entitled to bail. It took us just 15-20 minutes to deal with these matters. We carried out a summary proceeding out of exasperation. We do not wish to be troubled again with these matters,” the bench said, as it directed a copy of its order to be sent to the chief justice of Allahabad high court.

On facilitating the early release of prisoners languishing in prisons across the country, the court, in a separate matter, has roped in the National Legal Services Authority to enable timely decisions on remission pleas along with provision for such prisoners to file appeals through legal aid volunteers. A suo motu petition in this regard was registered on November 16. The court directed the same to be listed for March 15.

On February 9, the top court had directed the state government to take up premature release of over 4,000 life convicts who have spent 14 years in jail till July. The court had fixed four months as the outer limit for processing the plea of 4,127 life convicts and further six months to decide on the same.

The state government had earlier announced to withdraw a contentious clause in its premature release policy of July 28, 2021 requiring a life convict to be 60 years of age to be eligible for remission/early release. This remained one of the biggest reasons for rejection of premature release pleas of life convicts.