Senior lawyer terms SC judgment on undertrials as 'historic'

Senior lawyer Bhim Singh on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court's order on undertrials, and said that the apex court has directed all the session judges throughout the country to visit the respective prisons within their jurisdiction at least once in two months.

"Court of Chief Justice of India (CJI) today directed all the session judges throughout the country to visit the respective prisons within their jurisdiction at least once in two months and find out if full period has been completed by respective prisoners and the period each prisoner spent in the particular jail is more than the maximum sentence which he should have got out of his offence, he should be set free," Singh told ANI here.

"And in case, somebody has completed half of the tenure but he has not been bailed out or he is still under trial, he shall be set out free on a personal bond. This is a historic judgement of the court," he added.

The Supreme Court today directed the judicial officers to release all the undertrial prisoners, who have already spent half of the maximum sentence for their offences languishing behind bars.

The apex court directed all the judicial officers to start visiting jails from October 1 and asked them to file a report after two months on the prisoners released by them.

Meanwhile, the senior lawyer also informed that the Supreme Court has directed the Government of India (GoI) to find out about the fate of 21 differently-abled prisoners in Amritsar, who have been 'languishing' in jail as their nationality is yet unknown.

"The court also directed Government of India to find out about the fate of 21 mentally challenged prisoners in Amritsar, five of them are deaf and dumb. They are languishing, CJI used the word languishing, in Amritsar jail without being attended. The Government of India has not been able to identify their nationality, which I submitted before the Court is unfortunate," he said.

Singh said that a prisoner named Abdul Shareef completed his sentence 17 years ago in 1997 but was still in the Amritsar jail.

The court has taken serious note of it and has asked the Government of India to file a detailed report on the deportation of mentally challenged prisoners, he informed.