The apex Court on Thursday said that life convicts who have undergone more than 10 years of imprisonment and whose appeals do not look like to be heard in the near future should be released on bail unless there are any significant reasons to deny such relief.
The Supreme court said that it needs to look into the matter of decongesting the overcrowded jails which has been one of the top objectives in the case of convicts for quite some time now.
The bench hearing the plea comprised Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay S Oka. The plea was based on the fact that many of the convicts who have been sentenced to a life term have been seeking bail on the sole ground that their appeals are pending for years before different high courts and the hearing is nowhere in sight mostly due to the huge number of pending cases. clogging the judicial system.
The judges said that the endeavour will be based on two bases. In the first instance, convicts who have served a jail term of over 10 years unless there exist cogent reasons to deny them the relief, should be enlarged on bail. Secondly, identify cases in which convicts have been in custody for over 14 years, in which case, the file can be referred to the government for considering premature release within a fixed time period ignoring the pendency of their appeals.
The top court has given four months to the high courts and other legal service authorities at state levels to carry out the exercise after obtaining the requisite data on convicts who have completed over 10 and 14 years in custody. The bench mentioned that this exercise has to be undertaken on an urgent basis so that a situation does not arise, where a convict completes the minimum sentence, which would make him eligible for remission.
According to the official data, there are some 5740 cases where appeals are pending. However, the new rule can be well exploited where the convicts may themselves aid in delaying the hearing till such time when they can be granted bail on these grounds.
