New Delhi (ILNS): The Delhi High Court today ruled that inmates who have been out of jail for the last several months on interim bail or parole in the Corona epidemic will have to go back to jail soon. The recent Court observation came as the number of infected people in the capital’s jails now stands at just 3. The court will pass a judgement on this soon.

The interim bails or paroles had been extended by the court on a number of occasions and with the number of infections now coming down the court wants to take a relook at its order.

The High Court made this remark when it was stated on behalf of the Director General of Prisons that 6,700 inmates are out of jail, benefitting from the periodic extensions of interim bail or parole. The DG told the full bench of the Chief Justice D. N. Patel, Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Talwant Singh that Tihar, Rohini and Mandoli jails have a capacity of 10,000 prisoners, but currently there are 15,900 prisoners. At this the bench said that now the chapter of Corona should be finished, let these people surrender or go back to jail.

The bench said: “We had passed the order in view of the epidemic, our order has no other purpose than to reduce the jail congestion.”

The bench said that interim bail and extension of parole order could continue for reasons other than the Corona epidemic. The bench held that it will again go back to the January-February situation this year. The bench further added that it would soon decide whether to continue the order to extend the interim bail or parole period of the prisoners by the same order, which is due to the Corona epidemic.

The bench made this remark while hearing an application seeking withdrawal / revision of the orders of July 13 and July 24. In the said order, the bench had extended the period of interim bail and parole till October 31, giving relief to all the prisoners who were released from jail on interim bail / parole before or after March 16.

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This application has been filed on behalf of prosecutor Amit Prasad, a special person appointed to advocate cases related to Delhi violence. He has said in the application that prisoners of violence and other cases are abusing both the orders of the High Court.

At the same time, the prisoners are seeking bail due to family sickness or some other reasons and are then successful in extending the interim bail period by citing the said order of the High Court. The High Court had said that it would not allow its orders to be misused.

The bench had said that if the order is being misused, it will withdraw its extension order. The High Court had said that if the prisoners are misusing the order, then we will stop it and then they will have to suffer.

Maharashtra may have recorded more deaths and more corona patients among all states but when it comes to mortality rates, the dubious honour of having the peak rate goes to the prime minister’s home state of Gujarat.

Till Thursday, Maharashtra recorded 74 deaths and 1,135 corona patients, giving a mortality rate of 6.34 per cent, the third highest in India. At the same time, Gujarat with 179 patients, has recorded 16 deaths with a mortality rate of 8.94 per cent, while Punjab ranks second with 101 cases and 8 deaths giving a mortality rate of 7.92 per cent.

It comes as no surprise that Kerala, where the first Coronavirus case in the country was detected as early as January 31 has the lowest mortality rate. Though the tiny state on the south west coast had twice as many cases as Gujarat—–mostly Keralites returning from the Gulf—-the death toll is just two giving it a mortality rate of .52 percent.

Excellent health services Next to Kerala are of Rajasthan   which despite 381 cases recorded only three deaths—– a mortality rate of 0.78 percent. With 738 cases, Tamil Nadu has reined in the death count to just 8, at a mortality rate of 1.08 and Delhi with 669 cases and 9 deaths notched a mortality rate of 1.34 per cent. Other states that have done well on this front are Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh.

At the other end, Madhya Pradesh with 229 cases and 13 deaths has the fourth highest mortality rate of 5.68 per cent. Himachal Pradesh with just 18 positive cases and 1 death notched a mortality rate of 5.55 per cent followed by West Bengal with 103 cases and five deaths with a mortality rate of 4.85 per cent.

Since reporting the first death from the virus exactly a month ago on March 10, India has seen another 201 deaths. The country’s death rate of about 3 percent is lower than the global rate, and also much lower than several European countries like the UK, Italy and Spain, according to some medical experts.

India had reported its first COVID-19 death from Karnataka on March 10. India so far has reported 6,412 confirmed cases of coronavirus with a death toll of nearly 200, making it 3.1 percent death rate —percentage of deaths with respect to the total number of confirmed cases.