A decision by the Uddhav Thackeray government of Maharashtra left 49 prisoners convicted in murder cases and demanded an immediate hearing from the Supreme Court. The vacation bench of the court will hear this on Monday. The prisoners made this appeal through their lawyer Colin Gonsalves before the bench of Justice AS Bopanna and Justice Vikram Nath.
Actually, the Uddhav government had issued a notification in the month of May, in which those prisoners who were taken out of jail in 2020 due to Corona were asked to surrender within 15 days. These prisoners either came out on parole or were released on bail. All of them were serving life sentences in murder cases in the jails of Nashik, Aurangabad, Amravati and Kolhapur.
However, similarly a prisoner had approached the Supreme Court against the Kerala government. In April, the Supreme Court had ordered the surrender of all those prisoners of Kerala who were on parole due to Corona. The court had said that the situation in Corona has now improved. Now there is no reason why the parole period of prisoners should be extended. Such prisoners were asked to surrender in jail within two weeks.
A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and PS Narasimha had said that there is no reason to allow prisoners to continue on parole after the situation in Corona improves. The court said that there is no right to be on parole forever and it has to be stopped. It’s not like you can stay out of jail for the next five years.
Significantly, during the first wave of Corona, the Supreme Court had taken suo motu cognizance of the issue of overcrowding in jails. In its March 2020 order, the court directed the states and union territories to constitute a high-powered committee. The committee had recommended the release of convicts sentenced to less than 10 years of imprisonment on parole. The Supreme Court had this year asked the states to direct them not to take coercive action against those who came out.