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‘Very disturbing’: Supreme Court grants bail to Odisha life term convict not once released for 22 years
The court asked the petitioner to submit a personal bond of Rs 10,000 to the jail superintendent.
The court asked the petitioner to submit a personal bond of Rs 10,000 to the jail superintendent. (File Photo)
Granting bail to a murder convict who was sentenced to life imprisonment but remained incarcerated for 22 years without being released even once, the Supreme Court on Thursday termed “very disturbing” the Odisha High Court rejecting his appeal on grounds of delay.
Granting bail to Arjun Jani alias Tuntun, a bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and Ujjal Bhuyan said, “We are convinced that we should release the petitioner on bail in the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case.” The court asked the petitioner to submit a personal bond of Rs 10,000 to the jail superintendent.
The court also asked the District Legal Services Authority, Koraput, to help him in preparing an appropriate representation, seeking remission of sentence in accordance with the remission policy prevailing at the time of the commission of the offence or which is beneficial to him.
The bench said, “We have passed this order keeping in mind the fact that the petitioner is undergoing sentence past 22 years and has not been released even once during this period… His jail conduct has also been found to be satisfactory.”
The petitioner was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to life imprisonment in a 2004 murder case. He filed his bail appeal after nine years, when the High Court dismissed it on grounds of delay in January 2016. Following that, Jani approached the Apex Court.
The SC said: “The High Court, while declining to condone the delay, ought to have considered the fact that the petitioner was already undergoing sentence past 12 years. The High Court ought to have also considered that it was an appeal through jail. This itself was sufficient for the High Court to take a practical view or rather a sympathetic view of the matter and at least ought to have condoned the delay so as to give one opportunity to the petitioner to argue his criminal appeal on merits.”
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
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