Delhi High Court: The present Public Interest Litigation (‘PIL’) was filed under Articles 20, 21, and 226 of the Constitution seeking the following reliefs, (i) direction to respondents for issuing guidelines for release of undertrial prisoners (bail), which was to be followed by the judicial officer; (ii) direction to respondents to constitute a committee at district level consisting of District Judge, Deputy Commissioner of Police of district concerned, District Magistrate, and two members from the general public to be chosen by the Chief Justice of this Court; (iii) direction to the said committee constituted under clause (ii) to hold meeting at least once every month to decide as to which undertrial prisoners could be released and send their name to the magistrate concerned for passing an appropriate order of bail with requisite bail conditions; and (iv) direction to the said committee to submit a monthly report to the Chief Justice of this Court for appropriate action.
The Division Bench of Manmohan, ACJ.*, and Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, J., dismissed the PIL and held that since the issues raised by petitioner in the present petition were directly in issue in the writ petition pending before the Supreme Court and were being supervised therein, there was no reason for entertaining the present PIL.
Background
Counsel for petitioner contended that the present PIL was filed for the benefit of undertrials, who were languishing in over-populated/over-crowded jails pending their trial. It was submitted that if the present PIL was allowed it would put the overpopulated jails under check of a judicial officer and an expert committee, which would eventually result in dignified life for the undertrial prisoners. As per the data available on the website of the National Crime Record Bureau (‘NCRB’) as of 2021, there were 1319 prisons in the country, with actual capacity of 4,25,609, against which 5,54,034 prisoners were lodged in the jails. It was stated that 32.5% of total Delhi undertrial prisoners were in jails for more than one year, which further aggravated the situation in the overpopulated jails.
Chetan Sharma, ASG appearing for Respondent 1 stated that the issues raised by petitioner were directly pending consideration before the Supreme Court in Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons, In Re, WP(C) 406 of 2013 and thus, the present PIL could be disposed of granting liberty to petitioner to approach the Supreme Court. Further, Santosh Kr. Tripathi, Standing Counsel (Civil) for Respondents 2 and 3 stated that the issue being raised by petitioner was within the consideration of the Government and the said issue could be resolved by coming up with more and better infrastructure and the Delhi Government was already cognizant of the issue and steps were being taken in that regard.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court took note of the letter dated 18-2-2019 issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (‘MHA’) to all the States/Union Territories bringing to their notice the ‘Standard Operating Procedure for Under-Trial Review Committees’ (‘SOP’) framed by NALSA.
The Court opined that the reliefs sought by petitioner did not arise for consideration and were already addressed by the Supreme Court. Firstly, an Under Trial Review Committee (‘UTRC’) already stands constituted; secondly, fourteen categories of inmates eligible for early release already stands identified in the SOP; thirdly, the UTRC has been enjoined with the obligation to ensure that the under-trials covered under the said fourteen categories get benefit without delay; and lastly, the UTRC was directed to convene regular meetings for implementing the SOP and submit its action taken report to the concerned State Legal Services Authority, which report was being forwarded to NALSA and filed before the Supreme Court. The Court noted that the writ petition remains pending and was being heard by the Supreme Court.
The Court noted that the Supreme Court vide various orders had also taken up the issue of setting up more jails in each State/Union Territory due to overcrowding. In this regard, the Supreme Court had issued directions to each State Government to set up a designated Committee, which had its focus on taking steps for setting up new jails, expanding the existing facilities in the jails and providing facilities to the inmates using technology. Thus, the issue of overcrowding urged in the present PIL was also directly under consideration in the pending writ petition before the Supreme Court.
The Court dismissed the present PIL and held that since the issues raised by petitioner in the present petition were directly in issue in the writ petition pending before the Supreme Court and were being supervised therein, there was no reason for entertaining the present PIL.
[Gautam Kumar Laha v. Union of India, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 2904, decided on 24-4-2024]
*Judgment authored by: Acting Chief Justice Manmohan
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: Praveen Agrawal, Rajesh Ranjan Singh, Preeti Chaudhary, Stanzin Uron, Advocates with Petitioner in person
For the Respondents: Chetan Sharma, ASG; Apoorv Kurup, CGSC; Santosh Kr. Tripathi, Standing Counsel (Civil), GNCTD; Beenashaw Soni, Panel Counsel, DHC; Akhil Hasija, Vinay Yadav, Nidhi Mittal, Saurabh Tripathi, Vikramaditya Singh, Amit Gupta, Prashansha Sharma, Kartik Sharma, Mansi Jain, Ann Joseph, Advocates
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