The Allahabad high court will have to devise a policy within a month to release on bail convicts serving life sentences and also others till their appeals or bail petitions are heard, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday. There are more than 183,000 lakh such appeals pending before the high court.
“If appeal is pending at high court stage and a convict has undergone eight years sentence, exceptions apart, in most cases bail will be the rule,” an apex court bench of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and MM Sundresh said. “But despite this, cases are not coming up for consideration before the high court. We are also not clear how many years it will take for the bail to be heard.”
In these circumstances, the Supreme Court asked the Allahabad high court to take a policy decision within four weeks and report to the top court by November 16.
“It is for the high court to consider that in all cases where a life convict has undergone sentence of eight years, the case can be considered for grant of bail,” the apex court said. “There may be cases other than life convicts where half of sentence undergone can be basis for grant of bail.”
The bench passed the order while hearing a batch of 18 petitions filed by life convicts who had undergone 10 years or more in jail, with neither their appeal nor bail petitions being heard by the Allahabad high court.
{{/usCountry}}The bench passed the order while hearing a batch of 18 petitions filed by life convicts who had undergone 10 years or more in jail, with neither their appeal nor bail petitions being heard by the Allahabad high court.
{{/usCountry}}The Uttar Pradesh government, represented by additional advocate general Garima Prasad, had in August submitted suggestions to streamline the process of early release of prisoners after it had identified 7,214 convicts in various jails in the state who have served 10 years in prison and had appeals pending before the high court.
Uttar Pradesh agreed to consider bail for those life convicts who had served 10 years, or in cases where the appeal has not been heard for seven years, without any likelihood of them being taken up in the near future.
The Allahabad high court, represented by advocate Yashvardhan, told the Supreme Court that these suggestions were acceptable to it.
“First clear the backlog on suspension of sentence and then go back on hearing the regular appeals,” the top court bench said. “You cannot keep these suspension of sentence matters pending for a long time, otherwise [the] high court will be accused of curtailing fundamental rights under Article 21.”
The bench said it was aware of a scenario where adjournments are sought by convicts to delay hearings and then seek to benefit from the situation to get bail.
“That certainly cannot be an occasion for grant of bail,” the top court said, adding that the convict should first approach the high court for bail, and not the Supreme Court.