Prisoners who have spent 10+ years in jail, have long pending appeals, should be released on bail: Supreme Court to High Courts

The Supreme Court on Thursday opined that persons in jail who have completed at least 10 years of sentence and whose appeals are not likely to be heard anytime soon, should be enlarged on bail, provided there are no other extenuating circumstances. (In Re: Policy Strategy for Grant of Bail).A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and MM Sundresh was hearing three petitions; two relating to bail pleas of individual petitioners (arising out of the Allahabad High Court); and one, a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL) that the top court initiated to devise a policy strategy for granting bail in cases where appeals of trial court convictions have been long pending."We can appreciate if any of the parties is delaying the bail itself but short of that, we are of the view, that all persons who have completed 10 years of sentence and appeal is not in near proximity of hearing, with no extenuating circumstances, should be enlarged on bail," the bench said..The top court ruled that the directions issued today would be applicable to all High Courts, implying all of them have to undertake similar exercises. .During the hearing on Thursday, Amicus Curiae Gaurav Agarwal informed the bench that six High Courts had filed affidavits regarding the exercise of identifying life convicts being undertaken. The bench then emphasised that the aim of the exercise was to identify cases that are fit for grant of bail or remission for those who have been behind bars for a long period of time..The Supreme Court had, in earlier orders in the same matter, laid out norms towards disposing of all such bail and appeal pleas involving a single offence in one go, and enlarging the accused on bail unless there are special circumstances for not.Similar directions were passed towards considering remission of sentences for those in jail for over 14 years, and it was made clear that such cases can be dealt with by vacation benches..One of the appellants in the instant had moved the top court earlier this year after his criminal appeal from 2012 was kept pending by the High Court even as his bail was rejected in 2019. In an order passed in March, the Bench expressed anguished at the High Court's conduct in the appeal, and stated that is was "of the view that the bail should have been for the asking and the impugned order is completely unsustainable."The top court was told during that hearing by the appellant's counsel that there are similar cases of incarceration cases of over 16 years pending consideration even for bail to be granted before the High Court's Lucknow bench. Further, there was no bench to hear criminal matters for the last 25 days, to which the top court responded by observing, "This is a disturbing state of affairs, more so as we have been seized with the issue of the pendency of bail matters before the High Court of Allahabad and the Lucknow Bench and had even issued directions in this behalf for expediting the same in Saudan Singh Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh (Crl. Appeal No.308/ 2022) dated 25th February, 2022." The Lucknow Bench Registrar had, thus, been directed to file a report on the same and as to the number of pending bail applications where the incarceration period has been more than ten years. The said report, while pointing out that criminal benches were holding court at the time, revealed that 1561 cases where accused were incarcerated for more than 10 years without appeal or bail pleas being heard. .Advocates Mohd Irshad Hanif, Aarif Ali, Rizwan Ahmad, Mujahid Ahmad, and Nishant Vyas represented the appellant-Suleman.Additional Advocate General Garima Parshad, with advocates Ajay Vikram Singh, Priyanka Singh, Ajay Kumar prajapati, Shekher Shrotria, Yashvardhan, and Nikhil Goel appeared for the State. .[Read order]