New Delhi: The Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud on Monday directed Uttar Pradesh government to strictly comply with the policy provisions laid down for the premature release of convicts from prisons. The court ordered that all cases of prisoners eligible for premature release shall be disposed of within three months.
The bench also comprising Justice PS Narasimha and Justice JB Pardiwala was hearing a matter about the premature release of prisoners. Advocate Rishi Malhotra told the court on Monday that the UP government doesn't act on policies and contempt needs to be filed against it for following pick and choose a policy for the premature release of prisoners. He suggested that an Allahabad High Court judge should be appointed to monitor it or have monthly reports on release.
The court noted this and observed that the state of UP having formulated a statute, rules and a standing policy for deciding cases of premature release is bound by its own formulation of law and once there are legal provisions, it is not open for the state to adopt an arbitrary yardstick to pick up cases of premature release.
The court said that cases of premature release have been repeatedly coming to the court and despite fulfilling the criteria of premature release cases are not being dealt with as per the policy. To institutionalise the process of considering the cases for premature release in UP it passed a slew of directions today.
It directed the Chairperson of the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) to collate information from the district and state prisons on convicts, who have become eligible as per applicable rules/policies for premature release, directed all jail superintendents to furnish information to the secretary of the DLSA so as to ensure the process of premature release is implemented in an efficient and transparent manner.
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It asked the DLSA secretaries to collate information and submit returns on May 1, August 1 and October 1 to the DLSA. The Chairperson of the state body shall convene a meeting to assess the report filed by DLSA, meeting shall have a secretary of the Home department, DG (Prisons). Within a month of this order, DG (Prisons) have been asked to consult with the DLSA chairperson and prepare an online dashboard with information on all convicts undergoing sentences of imprisonment and dates on which they will be eligible for premature release. The dashboard shall contain information regarding the stage of pendency and dates on which convicts have to be released.
The UP government told the court that there is a practical aspect as well that needs to be considered like actions to be taken by the Governor. "There is no vacuum at the constitutional level. That's how prescient the Constitution is. Just because one is a constitutional authority, they cannot say they are above the law," said CJI Chandrachud.
Today during the hearing the court was informed that there are 2,228 convicts entitled to remission, they have completed 14 years of actual imprisonment and 3,700 prisoners have been released in the last five years. There are 1,16,000 prisoners in UP and 88,000 are undertrials.
