{"id":106719,"date":"2021-05-13T11:07:08","date_gmt":"2021-05-13T05:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=106719"},"modified":"2021-06-12T18:40:55","modified_gmt":"2021-06-12T13:10:55","slug":"protecting-prisoners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/protecting-prisoners\/","title":{"rendered":"SC Guidelines to Decongest Prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis- <\/strong>The Supreme Court has issued a slew of directions to decongest jails in light of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Introduction- <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In order to protect prisoners&#8217; right to life, the SC has ordered States to examine releasing inmates [convicted or facing trial in non-serious charges] on bail or parole to prevent overcrowding and spread of Covid-19 infection in prisons.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Key highlights of the order-<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To prevent any uncontrollable spread within the congested jail, The Supreme Court issues the following orders-<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To stop the transporting of remand prisoners to court for a periodical extension of custody and hearings.<\/li>\n<li><strong>HPCs should consider the release of all prisoners who were released last year &#8211;<\/strong> Those inmates who were granted parole, pursuant to our earlier orders, should be again granted parole for a period of 90 days\u201d.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Also, authorities were directed to\u00a0put Section 436A of the CrPC\u00a0into force<\/strong> &#8211; Undertrial prisoners, who have served half of the max sentence imposes to be released on personal bond.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>No arrests in violation of Arnesh Kumar judgment &#8211; <\/strong>Authorities should not make arrests in breach of the guidelines laid down in the 2014 judgment [<strong>Arnesh Kumar vs State of Bihar<\/strong>]. In which police were directed not to make needless arrests, especially in cases involving sentences of less than seven years.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The SC directed <\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Authorities to prepare readiness and response plans.<\/li>\n<li>State governments to form HCPs (high-powered committees).<\/li>\n<li>Delhi&#8217;s government to include the Commissioner of Police in the HCP.<\/li>\n<li>Prison occupancy to be updated on websites by all states.<\/li>\n<li>Appropriate steps should be taken for the transportation of the released inmates.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Challenges of prisons during COVID times-<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Uncertainty regarding medical care-<\/strong> It&#8217;s uncertain if the testing facilities and medical treatment provided to prisoners are successful or not.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Political prisoners are being repeatedly denied bail<\/strong> due to stringent laws have been invoked against them.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>For example-<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Those jailed in the <strong>Bhima Koregaon case<\/strong> without any direct link to any act of violence.<\/li>\n<li>Some <strong>political activists in Delhi<\/strong> are also in jail under anti-terrorism laws for alleged complicity in riots early last year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0Read Also :-<a class=\"seoquake-params-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/promoting-fair-effective-criminal-system\/\" rel=\"bc23d223 x_url\">Promoting fair and effective criminal system<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Way forward-<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The SC\u2019s decision to decongest jails and measures that protects the right to life and health of the prisoners is a positive development, but effective follow-up action is needed to insure that these measures are not implemented selectively.<\/li>\n<li>The courts also take into account political prisoner\u2019s vulnerability to infection and consider bail.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source- <a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/Home\/ShareArticle?OrgId=GUQ8IUM9O.1&amp;imageview=0\">The Hindu<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Synopsis- The Supreme Court has issued a slew of directions to decongest jails in light of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Introduction- In order to protect prisoners&#8217; right to life, the SC has ordered States to examine releasing inmates [convicted or facing trial in non-serious charges] on bail or parole to prevent&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/protecting-prisoners\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">SC Guidelines to Decongest Prisons<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10319,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230],"tags":[1399],"class_list":["post-106719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","tag-soc_7","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704785430},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}