Supreme Court Grants Ad Interim Bail To 97 Convicts Lodged In UP Jails For Over 20 Years

A Bench comprising Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice JK Maheshwari also issued notice in two writ petitions filed seeking release of the petitioners languishing in Jails of Agra and Varanasi.

The petitioners have argued that all of them were convicted and have served out their sentences predominantly of life imprisonment under various provisions of IPC, and have already undergone more than the desired period of sentence as stipulated in the policy dated 1.8.18, i.e, 16 years actual and 4 years with remission (total 20 years).

The petition filed through Advocate Rishi Malhotra has cited a previous order of Supreme Court dated 4th May, 2021 whereby the Court had granted relief to similarly placed batch of convicts.

"The Order dated 4.5.21 castes an obligation on the State to act as a welfare State and they have an obligation to consider the cases of premature release by way of periodic assessments", the plea states.

According to the petitioners when they were not released even after the top Court's order, they moved the Court again by filing a Contempt petition. They have argued that in order to avoid the Contempt proceedings, the State Government immediately complied with the directions and released at least 32 convicts on 16.7.21 who had undergone more than 20 years of total sentence including actual sentence of 16 years and above.

The petitioners have also challenged the amendment made by the State of UP in the policy dated 1.8.18 on 28.7.21, whereby an attempt has been made to defeat the rights of the convicts by restricting on the ground that only those convicts who have attained the age of 60 years or more would be given the benefit of the policy dated 1.8.18.

The petitioners have argued that the earlier policy should apply to the petitioners as it is a settled law that it is a policy which was in existence at the time of conviction which would be applicable and not the policy which is applicable at the time of consideration for premature release of a convict.