New Delhi: The Supreme Court has modified the standard operating procedure (SOP) for payment of bail amount of poor undertrial prisoners by state governments through district legal services authority (DLSA).
A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and Satish Chandra Sharma passed the order accepting the suggestion made by Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati and amicus curiae senior advocate Siddharth Luthra.
The top court made certain modification to its earlier SOP issued on February 13 last year and ordered that an empowered committee would be constituted comprising the nominee of district collector or district magistrate, secretary of DLSA, superintendent of police, superintendent/deputy superintendent of the concerned prison, and judge in-charge of the concerned prison.
DLSA secretary will be convenor of the meetings of the empowered committee, it said.
The top court said if the undertrial prisoner is not released from jail within a period of seven days of order of grant of bail, then the jail authority should inform the secretary, DLSA.
It said that the DLSA secretary upon receiving information would ensure to verify whether the undertrial prisoner has funds in his prisoner’s savings account and if not, then a request will be forwarded to the DLSA within a period of five days.
“The District Level Empowered Committee (DLEC) will direct release of funds for surety on the recommendation of DLSA within a period of five days from the date of receipt of the report, pending integration in the ICJS (Interoperable Criminal Justice System),” the top court said.
It added that the DLEC will meet on every 1st and 3rd Monday (in the event if there is holiday on such days, then on the next working days) of each month to consider the cases recommended by DLSA.
The bench said for cases where the empowered committee recommends that the identified undertrial prisoners will be extended the benefit of financial support under the ‘Support to Poor Prisoners’ Scheme’, then the requisite amount of up to Rs 50,000 per case for one prisoner, can be directed to be drawn and made available to the court by way of fixed deposit or any other prescribed method, which the district committee feels appropriate within five days of its decision.
“This decision would simultaneously be informed to DLSA and jail authorities by email, pending integration in the ICJS. In the event, the fund is not forthwith deposited within five days in court, and the UTP (undertrial prisoner) not released, the jail authorities on the 6th day should inform the DLSA,” it directed in its order dated October 8.
The top court said if the prisoner is acquitted/convicted, then appropriate orders may be passed by the trial court so that the money comes back to the government’s account as this is only for the purposes of securing bail.
“If the bail surety amount is higher than Rs 50,000, the empowered committee may exercise its discretion to pay such a higher amount not exceeding Rs 1 lakh. If the empowered committee declines to exercise discretion, it would inform the secretary, DLSA forthwith of its decision by email (and not later than two days), pending integration in the ICJS, to enable the secretary, DLSA to instruct a legal aid advocate to move the court granting bail or any superior court to have the surety amount reduced,” it said.
The bench also said that once the secretary, DLSA instructs a legal aid advocate to seek reduction of the surety amount, this application/petition would be filed by the legal aid advocate within seven days of the case being assigned to him/her.
Posting the matter for further hearing on November 26, the bench directed the Centre to carry out the necessary modifications in its scheme and issue a modified SOP in the said terms.
The top court earlier passed the order in the matter taking note of the fact that a large number of poor undertrial prisoners continue to languish in jails as they were unable to pay the bail amount fixed by the courts as a precondition for their release.
Under the guidelines and SOP for implementation of the ‘Support to Poor Prisoners’ Scheme’ which was accepted by the apex court last year, the funds to the states and Union territories were provided through the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) designated as the Central Nodal Agency (CNA) for this scheme.
Under the scheme, the states and UTs draw the requisite amount from the CNA on case-to-case basis and reimburse the same to the concerned competent authority (court) for providing relief to the prisoner.
