Pilot Project For Pre-Mature Release Of Life Convicts- 'State Of UP, With Maximum Problem Hasn't Responded': Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has warned that it will summon the Chief Secretary of the State of Uttar Pradesh if it does not respond to the pilot project for pre-mature release of life convicts.

The Court noted that the State with the maximum problem, the State of UP has not yet responded, despite the fact that in a different petition the Court had carried out an exercise of 'life convict' cases pending in the High Court for long period of time.

The Bench has directed the State of UP has to ensure that necessary information in relation to the pilot project is forthcoming, and has asked Advocate Gaurav Agrawal, appearing on behalf of NALSA to contact the Advocate General appearing in the matters in this regard.

The Bench has clarified that if the information is still not given to the NALSA within a month, the Chief Secretary of the State will be asked to appear to ensure that the Court's directions are complied with.

The Court has also directed four States -Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka- to implement a pilot project qua the aspect of pre-mature release of life convicts from 1st November 2011 and to furnish a report by February, 2022.

A Bench comprising Justice SK Kaul and Justice MM Sundresh has asked the National Legal Services Authority to contact the relevant State Governments to enable the exercise to be carried out.

Earlier, the pilot project was directed to be implemented in the States of U.P., Bihar and Chhattisgarh qua the aspect of pre-mature release of life convicts. The Bench observed that

The pilot project for pre mature release of convicts as stipulated by Supreme Court through its order dated 7th July has the following four vital aspects:

• Timely identification of the eligible convicts for premature release
• Making applications by the eligible convicts with the help of District Legal Services Authority;

• Timelines for the application procedure and decision on the premature release applications;
• If the premature release applications are rejected by the State Government, then legal aid will be provided to the said convict to decide whether the said rejection should be challenged in a Court or not.
  

The Bench has noted that pursuant to its earlier direction, the project is on-going in the State of Chhattisgarh, and an exercise is on for pre-mature release of prisoners on remission of their remaining sentence. The outcome of this exercise would be available by the first week of February, 2022 as per the report and the State of Chhattisgarh would furnish the outcome to the NALSA.

With respect to State of Bihar, the information has been given but NALSA would need some time to carry out the exercise.

The Bench had on March 1st asked the the National Legal Services Authority [NALSA] to take up the task of having a comprehensive guideline on aspect of how the matter of seeking remission after serving minimum sentence as per the respective State policies should be dealt with.

Advocates Gaurav Agrawal, Liz Mathew and Devansh A. Mohta are assisting the Court in the present case. 

Details of the Pilot Project: The following suggestions made by the Amicus in the present matter were approved by the Court as part of the pilot project:

Step –I: Identification of life convicts for premature release: Every four months, in January, May and September, the Jail Superintendent of the District or Central Jail will make a list of all eligible life convicts who are entitled for premature release in the next six months. The list will be made as per the eligibility criteria laid down in the State policies.

The Jail Superintendent will also send a copy of the list to the concerned DLSA which will assist in applications to be made by such eligible life convicts. The DLSA will also organize legal awareness programmes in jails through its Jail Legal Services Clinics with the aim of informing the inmates about premature release policy and procedures.

Step- II. Collection of documents: The Jail Superintendent will collect all the documents and reports which are required to be collected under the State policies and the process of collection of documents will be completed within a maximum period of three months so that the file is completed for forwarding the same to the higher authorities.

The Jail Superintendent will forward the same to the concerned authorities within the stipulated time, and the higher authority to whom the proposal is forwarded will collect any remaining documents and forward the proposal to the State Government within a period of one month from the date of receipt of proposal.

Step.III- Recommendation by Advisory Board or Sentence Review Board: Since different States have different mechanisms for deciding the premature release applications, the Advisory Board or Jail Headquarters have to make its recommendation to the State Government within three months of the receipt of the documents.

Further, the Review Boards may meet once in every quarter to ensure timely decisions of premature release applications.

Step IV: Orders by the State Government: The order passed by the State Government should be uploaded on the websites and, if any application for premature release is rejected, the reasons of the same should be communicated to the Jail Superintended who will communicate the same to the convict.

If the application for premature release is rejected, the concerned DLSA will consult, advise and provide legal assistance to the convict, if there is a possibility of legal challenge to the rejected of the premature release application.

Better Coordination between the DLSA and the jail authorities: The Bench had emphasised that there should be a better coordination between the DLSA and the jail authorities so that the entire burden does not fall on the jail authorities. The Court had suggested that the assistance of para-legals can also be obtained to facilitate better working of the system.

Timeline for State Government to take a decision: According to the Court, after the review Boards have taken a call, some time frame has to be provided for the State Government to take a decision.

Therefore the Bench directed that the State Government should take a decision within a period of two months of the communication of the recommendation of the review Board.

Background: The Bench was hearing a matter where it took cognisance of the issue on untimely consideration and disposal of jail petitions, applications for remission and pre mature release of convicts.

The cognisance was taken by a Bench led by Justice SK Kaul while hearing the present special leave petition filed by one petitioner who has been in custody for 18 years. The Bench observed that his case for release was not timely considered and legal assistance was not provided.

Order of 11th Jan 2021: The Bench had noted that it appeared that the legal assistance to the present petitioner was only provided now after 18 years of custody and more than one case of this nature had come up before the court.

The Bench took the view that if a detenue has already served 14 years of sentence in a case of 302 IPC then there are norms prevalent in each State for examination of such cases for release. However, it appears that legal assistance to do so after expiry of 14 years has not been forthcoming in many cases, including the present one.

The Bench observed that this aspect needed attention and the respondent State of Chhattisgarh and other States must put their house in order in respect of this aspect. The Bench had issued notice to the State of Chattisgarh on the this aspect as also to the National Legal Services Authority.

On Feb 1st, the Bench had found that the petitioner's case for remission was to be considered in 2014 when he completed the sentence of 14 years. However the same was sent after two and a half years in 2019 and thereafter it took the Home Department of Chhattisgarh one more year to accept the case for remission on 30.09.2020 and finally the petitioner was released from jail on 02.10.2020.

The Court had called upon the State of Chhattisgarh to file an affidavit setting out as to what process they have or propose to initiate to ensure that immediately on completing 14 years of sentence as per the Rules, the Superintendent, Jail is responsible for ensuring that the application is sent for consideration for remission, not later than one month from the date of completion of the said sentence.

The Bench had observed that it would like time schedules to be fixed for application of remission to be processed by the Home Department and the same should not take more than two to three months, unlike the present case where it had taken a year.

The Bench noticed that the focus appears to be on forwarding the papers to file a SLP on the anvil of 14 years expiry to complete formality (most of such appeals result in dismissal orders as being without merits) rather than ensuring that the application for remission is forwarded and considered expeditiously.

The Bench had then called upon Advocate Gaurav Agrawal, assisting the Court on behalf of the NALSA, to ensure that the order and directions passed were circulated to all the States to ensure compliances and asked the different States to submit their reports through the State Legal Services Authorities to the NALSA which may then place the picture before the Court to how to streamline the process.

The Bench had on March 1st asked the the National Legal Services Authority [NALSA] to take up the task of having a comprehensive guideline on aspect of how the matter of seeking remission after serving minimum sentence as per the respective State policies should be dealt with.

The Court had asked NALSA to consider whether in narcotics matters there should be a policy and if so, to what effect, how in matters of lesser sentence can legal assistance be provided when the cause arises rather than years later etc.

The Court had asked the NALSA and the Registrar to iron out the aspect of cases directly received by the Supreme Court from the jail, registered as jail cases but there appears to be a time lag between the registration of the case and the legal assistance being rendered in this behalf.

Case Title: Sonadhar vs State of Chhattisgarh 

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