Why Rajasthan High Court called surety demands for poor prisoners an ‘instrument of oppression’

It noted that when a prisoner’s indigence and inability to furnish sureties is established and undisputed, insistence on sureties becomes an ‘instrument of oppression and exclusion’.

What was the case?

The convict had sent a letter from jail, which the court treated as a writ petition. He was convicted in a murder case in 2014 and was serving a life sentence.

On previous three occasions, the convict had availed of parole whereby the imposition of the condition of furnishing surety bond was waived off.

Before approaching the court for the fourth time, the prisoner submitted an application seeking grant of fourth periodical regular parole for a period of 40 days. The said application was forwarded to the District Magistrate, Pali. The district parole advisory committee, Pali, allowed the application.

The committee ordered release of the prisoner on fourth periodical regular parole for 40 days, subject to furnishing two sureties of Rs 25,000 each along with a personal bond in the sum of Rs 50,000.

The convict approached the high court seeking waiver of the condition of furnishing sureties.

Why court waived off the condition?

The court noted that the legislative intent of the provisions for the sanction and release of prisoners on parole is to encourage good conduct and serve as a reformative and humanitarian measure.

While noting that parole is an integral facet of the reformative theory of punishment, the court held that parole and its conditions must conform to constitutional mandates of fairness, reasonableness and non-arbitrariness under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.

“Speaking once again of the applicable law/Parole Rules, on requiring of surety/security, neither there is any prohibition on the parole committee nor is there any mandate that a prisoner cannot be released on parole without insisting for or putting the condition of furnishing a security along with personal bond,” it observed.

The court, therefore, ordered his release on the sanctioned parole upon furnishing personal bond of Rs 50,000 and waived off the condition of furnishing sureties.

Guidelines for prisoner’s release

The court laid down some guidelines for mitigating the hardship to the prisoners’ release after sanction/grant of parole:

The court directed that in future cases of similarly situated prisoners, the discretion should be exercised in a humane, rational and constitutionally compliant manner, so that the benefit of parole does not remain confined to prisoners.