Frame SOP to ensure release of inmates within 48 hours of bail: HC to Delhi govt

A division of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Amit Mahajan, while asking the Delhi government counsel to obtain instructions, orally observed: “As soon as the order is communicated, the jail superintendent shall ensure that the convict speaks to his family or lawyer or whoever. And, build an SOP whereby he gets released in 48 hours… In general, the SOP can be where an inmate is released within 48 hours, but in special emergencies, you can release them much earlier. In the case of a funeral/marriage, you will have to compress it to five to six hours.”

The HC said on Tuesday that at times, when there are emergencies in convicts’ families — majority of whom are poor, with many not even able to afford lawyers — it is not possible for them to keep following up with everyone. “Speak to the jail superintendent and director general (Prisons),” the bench told the counsel.

The court also called for a supplementary affidavit within 10 days, and listed the matter on April 1.

On the court’s query, the Delhi government counsel told the bench on Tuesday that as per the jail superintendent, “the moment they get intimation of the surety, that very moment they wireless it to the police station concerned”.

The bench, thereafter, said that the prison authorities must have Internet connection and make use of technology available to it in a way that people could be released in 48 hours. It told the counsel to calibrate steps needed to be taken, and resources required in the process.

The counsel then suggested that if sureties of inmates are ready, then police can verify it immediately. To this, the bench said that if sureties are asked for along with a bail plea and if they are ready, but the bail is rejected, then that becomes “counter productive”.

On February 8, while suspending the sentence of a convict in a negotiable instruments act case, Justice Mahajan had directed that the person be released on bail on certain conditions, along with furnishing a bail bond to the satisfaction of the jail superintendent. The man, thereafter, moved the HC, seeking that he be directed to furnish the bail bond to the trial court instead of the jail superintendent concerned, alleging that formalities pertaining to the acceptance of bail bond by the jail superintendent takes approximately one to two weeks.

While taking suo motu cognisance of the matter on February 19, Justice Mahajan observed that a “prisoner is not remitted to the trial court in order to facilitate the immediate release”, and the “delay at the instance of the jail superintendent in accepting bail bonds is not acceptable to the conscience of this Court”.