Apex Court Wants States to Release Specific Undertrails; Centre Questioned on “Influential Persons”

2014-09-23_supreme_courtNEW DELHI—While slamming various state Governments for not releasing undertrials who have served more than half of their sentences, the Supreme Court also asked the Centre Government to clarify if “influential persons” could be released via expeditious trial.

In 2014, the Supreme Court had passed an order for Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Bihar to release all undertrial prisoners who had already served over half their sentences, however failed to furnish bail bonds.  The bench of Justices J Chelameswar and A.M. Sapre have asked these States to provide written explanation onto why such prisoners were not released as per the directives passed in 2014.

Despite the order passed last year, majority of prisoners have not been given relief.  In 2014, the Supreme Court had stated that prisoners not announced death penalty could be released if they have served more than half of their sentence.  A special team of judicial officers had identified that over 2,000 such prisoners remain lodged throughout India who could be released.

At that time, in reference to prisoners, Justice Lodha had said, “They languish in jails because courts are not enabled to take up their cases. Many States have no finances for courts. There is no infrastructure, no courtrooms.”

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