Relax bail conditions suo motu if bail bond not furnished for a month: Supreme Court to trial courts

The Supreme Court recently directed that local courts may suo motu consider relaxing bail conditions in cases where bail bonds have not been furnished by accused for over a month [In Re: Policy Strategy for Grant of Bail]..In an order passed on January 31, a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay S Oka also said that the concerned courts should not always insist on local sureties, which create an impediment in securing bail. After discussing suggestions of Amicus Curiae Gaurav Agrawal regarding bail, the judges ordered compliance with the following directions:- The Court which grants bail to an undertrial prisoner/convict would be required to send a soft copy of the bail order by e-mail to the prisoner through the Jail Superintendent on the same day or the next day. The Jail Superintendent would be required to enter the date of grant of bail in the e-prisons software [or any other software which is being used by the prison department;- If the accused is not released within a period of 7 days from the date of grant of bail, it would be the duty of the Superintendent of Jail to inform the secretary of Delhi Legal Services Authority (DLSA) who may depute para legal volunteer or jail visiting advocate to interact with the prisoner and assist the prisoner in all ways possible for his release;- NIC would make attempts to create necessary fields in the e-prison software so that the date of grant of bail and date of release are entered by the prison department and in case the prisoner is not released within 7 days, then an automatic email can be sent to the secretary, DLSA;- The secretary, DLSA with a view to finding out the economic condition of the accused, may take help of the probation officers or the para legal volunteers to prepare a report on the socio-economic conditions of the inmate which may be placed before the concerned court with a request to relax the condition (s) of bail/surety;- In cases where the undertrial or convict requests that he can furnish bail bond or sureties once released, then in an appropriate case, the court may consider granting temporary bail for a specified period to the accused so that he can furnish bail bond or sureties;- If the bail bonds are not furnished within one month from the date of grant bail, the concerned court may suo moto take up the case and consider whether the conditions of bail require modification/ relaxation;- One of the reasons which delays the release of the accused/ convict is the insistence upon local surety. It is suggested that in such cases, the courts may not impose the condition of local surety..The Court was hearing a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL) petition initiated to devise a policy strategy for granting bail in cases where appeals of trial court convictions have been long pending.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 doing so.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.Pertinently, the bench had earlier emphasised 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 All States are to issue directions to jail authorities to provide data on undertrials languishing behind bars due to non-fulfilment of bail conditions.During the hearing of the matter on January 31, Agarwal flagged the fact that several accused languish in jail despite the grant of bail as they are apparently not willing to furnish bail bonds in other cases until given bail in all the cases, as undertrial custody will be counted in all the cases. Counsel for the National Legal Services Authority pointed out that to ensure that undertrial prisoners who are unable to furnish surety or bail bonds due to financial reasons do not remain in jail, it is in the process of creating a master data of all such accused.The same will be ready within two months time, and will include an excel sheet with all relevant details like reasons for non-release and steps taken by local legal service authorities. On the E-Prisons software, Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj said he would take instructions if the same can be shared on a restricted basis with legal service authorities. .[Read order]