The Delhi High Court on Monday asked the city government to reply to a petition to release on bail those undertrial prisoners (UTPs) who have served more than half of the maximum sentence, which would be awarded to them if convicted for the lesser of the multiple offences they are facing trial.
A Bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan asked the Delhi government to give its stand on the plea by a trust, India Undertrial Prisoner Support Forum, which has contended that granting bail to such UTPs would be a long term solution for decongesting the jails.
The trust argued that the Supreme Court had in 2015 and 2016 ordered setting up of a Undertrial Review Committee (UTRC) to consider cases of UTPs who were entitled to benefit of CrPC Section 436A which provides the maximum period for which a UTP can be detained. Section 436A of CrPC provides for release on bail of the person who has undergone detention for a period extending up to one-half of the maximum period of imprisonment specified for that offence under that law.
The petition contended that the actual number of UTPs who fall under the ambit of Section 436A is not provided to the review committee by the prison authorities as is required under the standard operating procedure laid down by the National Legal Services Authority and adopted by the Supreme Court in its directions for UTRC.
The plea also stated that the holding capacity of the 16 jails in Delhi at Tihar, Mandoli and Rohini together was 10,026 prisoners, but they were housing 17,440 inmates, out of which 14,355 were UTPs.
