SC takes note of pendency of pleas by convicts for premature release

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has observed that remedy available to convicts more specifically of remission should be provided at the earliest, and asked states to submit their reports to the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) to streamline this process.

The court made the observation on Monday while taking note of the pendency of applications filed by convicts for premature release. The states should submit their reports through the state legal services authorities to the NALSA, it said. A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hrishikesh Roy referred to the data filed with the NALSA as per which 1,649 applications of convicts for premature release are pending. It should be verified as to how long have these applications been pending to get an insight into this issue."

We also find that 431 prisoners have not applied for premature release and thus may not be aware of their rights. It is towards this objective that we have passed the directions in the present matter which pertains to Chhattisgarh but the same principles must apply across the board, the court said.

The top court passed the order while hearing a matter arising out of Chhattisgarh in which the petitioner had completed the sentence of 14 years in March 2017 but he was released from jail in October 2020 after his plea for remission was accepted.

We are of the view that in such cases the superintendent jail should be looking into all such matters and making sure that remedy is available to the detenu, it said.

The bench noted that the petitioner's application for remission was sent after two-and-a-half-years in September 2019 and thereafter, it took the home department of the state one more year to accept it and finally he was released from jail in October last year.