‘Liberty…can’t be bartered on technicalities’: SC directs judicial probe into delay in releasing prisoner who got bail

Directing the inquiry into the delay, a bench of Justices K V Viswanathan and N K Singh said, “… The episode is unfortunate. Each one of the stakeholders was aware of what the offence was, what the crime number was, and what the sections the applicant was charged with. In spite of this, the applicant has been sent on a spin and notwithstanding the order of this Court on April 29 (2025) and the release order of May 27 (2025), which to our mind was clear as daylight, the applicant has been released only on June 24 (2025).”

“Liberty cannot be bartered on these useless technicalities,” the bench underlined. It also directed the state of Uttar Pradesh to pay provisional compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the petitioner, Aftab, for loss of liberty due to the delay in releasing him.

“The authorities knew what the concerned section was and they themselves moved for correction. The net result is on this non-issue, the applicant has lost his liberty for at least 28 whole days. The only way we can remedy the situation is to order ad hoc monetary compensation… We order that the State of Uttar Pradesh pay a sum of Rs 5 lakh and report compliance on June 27,” the Supreme Court ordered.

The bench made it clear that the compensation already ordered “will be provisional in nature” and that the final compensation amount would be calculated after the inquiry, and if any official is held responsible, the court would decide what portion of it should be paid by the official.

The court said, “We only hope that no other convict/undertrial is languishing in jail on account of a similar technicality.” It added that the “Director General (Prisons) has assured inquiry would be conducted on this aspect and it would be made sure that nobody suffers on this count.”

The accused was arrested for offences under section 366 (kidnapping or inducing a woman to marry) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 3/5(i) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act. He approached the apex court, saying that he was not released as clause (1) of section 5 of the 2021 Act was not mentioned in the order, and sought modification of the April 29 order.

UP Additional Advocate General (AAG) Garima Prashad informed the court that the petitioner was released on Tuesday evening.

“When there is no difficulty in identifying the prisoner and offences, nitpicking on court orders and on that pretext not implementing them and keeping the individual behind the bar would be a serious dereliction of duty,” the bench said in its order. “If you keep people behind bars for this reason, what message are we sending?,” Justice Viswanathan asked, and wondered, “What is the guarantee that many other people are not languishing for this reason?”

The DG (Prisons) assured the court that prison officials would be sensitised so that such instances would never recur.

Prashad, meanwhile, referred to an Allahabad High Court judgment which said that release orders must be issued only after verifying the particulars. But the bench pointed out that the judgment dealt with an issue of forged orders.

The AAG said that the DG (Prisons) has instituted an inquiry at the level of the
Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, Meerut. However, the court said that a judicial enquiry would be more appropriate.

Justice Viswanathan also cautioned the petitioner that it will take action against him if it finds that the non-release was due to some other reason, like detention in another case, and not due to non-addition of sub-clause as claimed by him. He also warned that the court will initiate contempt proceedings against the authorities if the petitioner’s claim is found to be true.

Hearing the matter on Tuesday, the Supreme Court asked the Superintendent Jailer of Ghaziabad District Prison to appear before it in person, and the Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (Prisons) to appear through videoconferencing to ascertain what exactly happened.