what The Supreme Court ruled about life-sentenced prisoners:
Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay Shreeniwas Oka were sitting on a division bench to hear a group of petitions from life inmates whose appeals are still pending in several High Courts.
The Supreme Court ruled that in order to relieve the congestion in cells, all convicts who have served 10 years of their life sentence and have appeals pending before courts must be allowed bail unless there are good reasons to refuse it.
The High Courts were asked by the bench to ensure that the procedure was finished as quickly as feasible. The court stated, “We can understand if any of the parties are prolonging the bail itself, but short of that, we are of the opinion that all those who have served their 10-year sentences and have appeals who are not in the immediate area of the hearing should be expanded on release.”
Six High Courts have already started the process of identifying life sentence inmates, according to attorney Gaurav Agarwal, the amicus curiae in the case, who informed the bench.
The court further stated that regardless of whether an appeal is underway or not, the High Courts should identify situations where prisoners have served 14 years in prison, in which case a case might be sent to the government for consideration of premature release within a certain time.
“We must bear in mind the goal of clearing out jails where offenders are being held without the benefit of appeals hearings. The aforementioned activity must be completed as soon as possible to avoid the circumstance where the offender serves the bare minimum of his or her sentence before being considered for remission. The order said that this exigency had arisen only as a result of the appeals not being heard, and it gave the High Court and state legal services committees four months to complete this task. you can see also Karnataka Hijab Ban hearing: Supreme Court Updates.
