Right to dignity subsists beyond prison gates: Manipur High Court grants bail, suspends sentence of POCSO convict

The Manipur High Court recently granted bail and suspended the sentence of a man convicted under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act for sexually assaulting a three-and-a-half-year-old girl.[Sandam Bhogen Meetei v. State of Manipur].Justice MV Muralidaran passed the judgment while taking into consideration the petitioner’s precarious health condition, for him to receive better treatment outside jail. The Court also emphasised that right to life of undertrials does not diminish in jail.“Such person’s health concerns have to be taken care by the State and if not done so, by the judiciary. The right to dignity of an accused does not dry out with the Judges. Rather, it subsists beyond the prison gates and operates until his last breath,” the Court said..The judge said that it was necessary that the petitioner gets adequate medical treatment, since every accused required humane treatment..The petitioner in the case was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 by a trial court, but had preferred an appeal against the order and sought suspension of sentence as well as bail while primarily citing medical grounds.It was also stated that there were several infirmities in the trial court’s judgment, and that the appeal would not be taken up in the near future.The State opposed the plea in light of the seriousness of the offence and stated that the jail had facilities for the petitioner’s treatment..The Court relied on a judgment of the top court in the case of Union of India v Ram Samujh where it was held that bail and suspension of sentence can be granted in a case where there were reasonable grounds for believing that the accused was not guilty of the offence and he was not likely to commit any offence while on bail..Emphasising that there was no straitjacket formula to be applied to such cases, the Court found that in this case, there was no apprehension of the petitioner giving a slip to the law.Further, the judge underscored that the right to life and liberty of an individual was precious, and continued during the appeal period, since an appeal was continuation of the trial..With this, the petitioner was released on bail on furnishing a bond of ₹50,000.Advocate S Jibon appeared for the petitioner while the respondents were represented by Public Prosecutor H Samarjit..[Read order]