‘In jail despite bail’: Supreme Court seeks undertrials’ data

To ensure speedy release of undertrial prisoners, the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed all states and Union Territories (UTs) to collate data on such inmates who have got bail but cannot walk out of jail due to their inability to comply with its conditions such as furnishing bonds or sureties.

A bench, headed by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, gave states and UTs 15 days to seek such information from the jail authorities and share the statistics with the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), which, it said, should provide immediate assistance to facilitate the release of such prisoners.

The order by the bench, which also comprised justice AS Oka, would lead to first ever nationwide survey of undertrial prisoners forced to languish behind bars even after securing bail owing to certain handicaps in meeting the conditions of bail.

“In order to have realistic statistics, each jail must send data to state and states can then send it to NALSA so that a scheme can be framed. Assistance will have to be given to such undertrial prisoners. Therefore, we call upon all states and UTs to direct jail authorities to submit data with respect to all such undertrial prisoners with details of their names, dates on which bail was granted, the offences alleged of, the condition of bail not met and the period in jail since the grant of bail,” it recorded in the order.

Directing that the sates will ensure that these details are made available to them within 15 days, the court order added that the data will be shared with NALSA within a week thereafter. “NALSA will then have necessary deliberation on the issue and will, obviously, provide required assistance,” stated the order.

The bench further said that NALSA can seek the assistance of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), which is already working in this field and has made a similar endeavour to collect data for the state of Maharashtra.

“Let’s see how NALSA can evolve a mechanism in the national perspective… Some survey has to be done where bail has been granted but people haven’t been able to come out for not being able to comply with the conditions. Financial means can become a challenge for people,” observed the bench, as it ordered for collating pertinent information from across the country.

In October last year, the bench had initiated proceedings on its own motion (suo motu) to monitor implementation of its directives on grant of bail to undertrials and during the pendency of the appeal. It had directed that bail applications must be listed and decided expeditiously in all cases where the accused have been in custody.

The court had also appointed advocates Gaurav Agrawal, Liz Mathew and Devansh Mehta as amicus curiae to assist it in evolving methods to expedite the release of undertrials. In this case, the bench has issued a spate of orders speeding up release of the convicts undergoing life term either on bail when the appeals have been pending for a very long period, or on remission under the existing state regulations.

Justice Kaul, who took over as the executive chairman of NALSA on Friday, talked about the problems of undertrials when he spoke at the Constitution Day celebrations at the Supreme Court last week.

“We know that there is a large problem of undertrials languishing in prisons for extended amounts of time, and this is an area towards which we must urgently divert our attention. Our collective endeavours can lead to a significant change. We can concentrate our efforts towards conducting thorough study of the effectiveness of existing legal aid processes, improving the ways in which legal aid lawyers are selected, providing them with appropriate incentives, training such lawyers more adequately, and introducing monitoring and accountability mechanisms,” the judge had said.

Speaking at the inaugural session of first all India district legal services authorities meet in New Delhi in July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi implored the judiciary to speed up release of undertrials who remain incarcerated for want of legal aid. Focussing on the issue of undertrials, which constitute 2/3rd of the inmates in prisons across the country, the PM had at this meet said: “Sensitivity has been shown several times in the past by the Supreme Court on the humanitarian issue related to undertrial prisoners in the country. There are so many prisoners who have been languishing in jails for years, awaiting legal aid. Our district legal services authorities can take up the responsibility of providing legal aid to these prisoners.”

The issue of undertrial prisoners was also one of the moot points addressed by Modi when addressed the joint conference of chief ministers of states and high court chief justices in April this year. “Today, there are about 3.5 lakh prisoners in the country who are undertrials and are in jail. Most of these people are from poor or ordinary families. In every district there is a committee headed by the district judge, so that these cases can be reviewed and wherever possible, such prisoners may be released on bail,” he had said at that time.