The Delhi High Court has initiated a case on its own over alleged delay in acceptance of bail bonds by jail authorities for releasing inmates, observing that deprivation of liberty for a single day is “a day too many”.
Justice Amit Mahajan said the object of granting bails and suspending sentences is to release an accused or a convict from imprisonment, and delay at the instance of the jail superintendent in accepting bail bonds is not acceptable to the conscience of the court.
The court passed the order after it was informed that a convict in a cheque bounce case was told the formalities involving acceptance of his bail bond for release on interim bail by the jail superintendent would take anywhere from one to two weeks.
Justice Mahajan said bail bonds are at times ordered to be directly furnished to the jail superintendent instead of the trial court concerned to facilitate immediate release, and in certain cases, interim bails are granted on medical grounds or other exigencies.
“In such a scenario, this court fails to understand why the period of one to two weeks be taken by the Jail Superintendent for accepting the bail bonds. The Hon’ble Supreme Court has time and again reiterated the principle ‘Deprivation of Liberty for a single day is a day too many..’,” the court said in a recent order.
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“The delay at the instance of the Jail Superintendent in accepting Bail Bonds is not acceptable to the conscience of this Court. Let the matter be registered as Suo Motu petition and numbered,” the court ordered.
It asked the Director General of Prisons to file “an appropriate affidavit” in the matter.
The additional standing counsel appearing for the authorities said the case of delay cited by the court was possibly an aberration and delay, normally, does not occur on the part of the jail superintendent.
In the order, the court referred to the Supreme Court directions for adopting a procedure termed FASTER’–Fast and Secured Transmission of Electronic Records– aimed at reducing the delay in forwarding bail orders to jail authorities. According to the SC direction, an order for the release of a prisoner is supposed to be sent directly to jail authorities through the FASTER cell.
The matter would be heard next in March.
