No money to pay surety,91 inmates still waiting for freedom

The affidavit was filed before the Division Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Madan B Lokur on June 2 in response to a PIL by city lawyer D M Bhalla.

The petition sought strict compliance of the Supreme Court order asking the state to consider factors like social justice in case of persons unable to secure his freedom for want of money. The authorities must move the courts for relaxing conditions attached to the bail orders and in appropriate cases should even request the courts to release the undertrial prisoners on the executing person’s bond,the apex court had said.

Bhalla also demanded compensation for all such prisoners who had been languishing in jails for failure of the obligation cast upon the state government.

The affidavit,endorsed by the Deputy Secretary (Home) and submitted by state government Standing Counsel Najmi Waziri,also blamed the lower courts for failing to comply with the High Court’s directive asking them to mandatorily send the bail orders to the prison. “The Delhi Prisons is constrained to state that the directions issued by the court that ‘copies of all bail orders be sent to Superintendent,Jail for monitoring purposes’ is not being followed/observed properly,” it read.

The affidavit further stated that just 10 per cent of the bail orders were being received by the jail authorities from the trial courts and that prison officers were therefore compelled to compile them on a monthly basis on the basis of information being provided by the inmates themselves.

“The issue of non-receipt of bail orders has been raised time and again by the prison authorities in the Coordination Meeting with the District Judiciary headed by the learned District and Sessions Judge. He has repeatedly reiterated the orders of this court for compliance and has issued circulars to the trial courts too. However,the prison authorities are still awaiting proper implementation of the aforesaid orders/directions,” the document stated.

Terming the modification of the surety amount as a “judicial matter”,the affidavit said the High Court could pass appropriate orders in view of the facts. The Bench remarked that the PIL indeed raised a “very serious issue” and that they would certainly look into it. The matter will now be heard in July.

According to Tihar Jail’s website,while the sanctioned capacity of the ten jails in Delhi is 6,250,around 12,000 prisoners are currently lodged there.