Bombay HC hears PIL on decongestion of prisons by Medha Patkar's NGO

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Jamdar on Tuesday heard at length a petition filed by Medha Patkar's National Alliance for People's Movement (NAPM) on the issue of decongesting prisons during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
SB Talekar, counsel for NAPM, urged the court to hold that the conditions imposed by a state-appointed high power committee (HPC) headed by a sitting HC judge, for release of prisoners either on interim bail or emergency parole, has resulted in frustration of the directions of the Supreme Court, which essentially wanted to decongest the prisons so as to ensure social distancing in jails.
He argued that the HPC had exceeded its jurisdiction in directing the lower courts to decide the interim bail applications by going into merits of cases.
Talekar said although the HPC recommendations claimed to release around 17,000 prisoners on interim bail, only 7,000 odd prisoners were released. Similarly, as against 11,000 prisoners claimed to be released by the state government on emergency parole, only 2000 odd prisoners were released.
The matter has been kept for further hearing on Friday.