HPC classification of prisoners discriminatory: PIL

While a petitioner NGO challenged the classification of prisoners to be released on interim bail/parole by the High Power Committee (HPC), the Bombay high court

While a petitioner NGO challenged the classification of prisoners to be released on interim bail/parole by the High Power Committee (HPC), the Bombay high court reiterated that the temporary bail/parole was ‘charity’ and ‘grace’ being extended to inmates and hence they could not claim the facility as a right. The observations were made after the NGO submitted that the HPC classification was against fundamental rights of the inmates. The NGO which is run by activist Medha Patkar submitted that the interim bail/parole was directed by the Supreme Court to decongest jails so that social distancing norms recommended by the ICMR, central and state governments to curb the spread of the Covid 19 virus could be observed, thus saving the lives of prisoners and prison authorities, hence it could not be termed as ‘charity’ and ‘grace’.

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A division bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Madhav Jamdar while hearing the PL filed by National Alliance for People’s Movement was informed by senior advocate Satish Talekar that the HPC had made a classification of prisoners eligible for interim bail/parole/furlough beyond the scope of the directions issued by the Supreme Court for decongestion of jails to curb the spread of the Covid 19 pandemic within jails.

Talekar submitted that while the apex court had only said that the release of prisoners who have been convicted or are undertrial for offences for which prescribed punishment is up to 7 years or less, with or without fine as criteria, the HPC had gone ahead and classified prisoners based on the crime. This Talekar said was discriminatory and arbitrary and as the HPC had gone beyond the ambit of the SC directions, the HPC decision should be set aside.

The state on its part informed the bench through public prosecutor Deepak Thakare that following order of another bench of the HC, it had been considering the release of prisoners serving life sentences and had released many such prisoners, hence the grouse of the petitioner was not valid.

The bench had directed that the pre-condition for emergency release could not be fixed and had to be based on merit. The current bench observed that it would treat the order as a precedent and reserved its order in the present petition.