New Delhi (ILNS): The Supreme Court has stayed the Delhi High Court order directing more than 2,300 under-trials to surrender, after the Delhi High Court ended the arrangement by which interim bail of prisoners was automatically extended to prevent overcrowding of prisons during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The high court had directed 2,318 under-trials involved in heinous offences to surrender in a phased manner latest by November 13.

A bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta and Ajay Rastogi issued notice to the Delhi government and others on a petition challenging the High Court order and sought reply.

The apex court was hearing an appeal filed by the National Forum for Prison Reforms (NFPR) against the Delhi High Court order.

The High Court had ordered that its order to grant bail before the lockdown and during this period would not remain in effect after October 31. Senior Counsel Colin Gonzalves and Ajay Verma appeared on behalf of the petitioner in the case.

In its petition before the apex court, the NFPR stated that the high court directive is totally against the spirit of the order dated March 23, 2020. In this, the high court had ignored eight recommendations of the high powered committee set up by the Supreme Court.

The apex bench said: “There shall be stay of directions (i), (ii) and (iv) given in paragraph 7 of the impugned order dated October 20 passed by the High Court.”

The stay would operate till November 26 when the bench will hear the prison authorities and Delhi government on the petition.

Read the order here;

Lucknow (ILNS): A PIL has been filed before the Allahabad High Court to make prisons less crowded by taking various effective measures considering the increasing cases of Corona and the health of the prisoners in the time of pandemic.

A bench of Justice Pritinker Diwakar and Justice Subhash Chandra Sharma heard this PIL yesterday and issued a notice to the state government to file its reply.

The PIL has been filed by Senior Advocate Dileep Kumar, for petitioner Man Mohan Mishra, who is a practising advocate at Allahabad High Court. It seeks direction to the Department of Prison Administration, Government of Uttar Pradesh, and the Uttar Pradesh High Powered Committee.

In his plea the petitioner has requested before the Court to consider the release of prisoners who are above the age of 65 years old or suffering from co morbidities in view of the Guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs on July 29. To make this effective the Court can ensure speedy trial and disposal of the bail applications, parole applications etc.

The petition states:

“The state of the prisons in the state are dismal. The rate of occupancy of 178 percent in the state prisons is concerning in view of the communicable pandemic. Despite of the monitoring of the Hon’ble Supreme Court and the High Powered Committee the occupancy has not fallen to the optimum standards.

Advocates Rajrshi Gupta and Vinayak Mithal, on behalf of the Petitioner, submitted: “Several applications for bail and appeal are pending before this court for the prisoners who are inhabitants of those high rate occupancy prisons. Due to the limited work flow of this Court the applications for those prisoners cannot be disposed of efficiently in these highly extraordinary conditions.”

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It is further submitted that the overcrowded prisons bring an invitation to mass infection and there is no medicines to counter the virus.

-India Legal Bureau

The petition filed by Advocate G. Rajesh also seeks as an alternative, a mechanism to be put in place to maintain social distancing while distribution of essential commodities at shops in the State of Tamil Nadu.

The petitioner also showed concern for the people stating that the Government of Tamil Nadu has not clarified how it would be made sure that there is no overcrowding in shops when people come out to buy essential commodities. The Government had notified that there will be a token system that would be implemented but they had not made the procedure for obtaining the tokens clear.

The petition stated, “the manner in which the distribution to be effected has not been published in widespread in print and visual media. It was merely announced that token will be issued at the doorstep of the ration card holders but no announcement with respect to when to assemble; precautionary measures of social distancing etc”

The petitioner contended that this lack of information could lead the people to rush into the shops which would defeat the purpose of lockdown and further could defeat all the efforts made by the Central and State Governments

-India Legal Bureau

Agusta Westland scam accused Christian Michel has moved a fresh application in the Delhi High Court seeking interim bail in view of the rising pandemic Coronavirus. Michel in his application has stated that his age is 59 years and he has a history of bad health which makes him susceptible to Coronavirus.

The application stated, “The applicant herein is of 59 years of age and ill. The agedness and a pre-existing ill state of health will make the applicants body more susceptible to the said infection than any other ordinary prisoner with a normal health condition.”

The application filed by him referred to a Supreme Court order which was passed earlier this week asking the States and the Union Territories to set up high level committees and determine prisoners who could be released on parole so as to avoid overcrowding in prisons in the wake of COVID-19.

Christian Michel was arrested by the ED in December 2018 and has been in custody ever since. He has applied for bail several times but all his applications were dismissed. Christian Michel is an alleged middleman who is being investigated by the ED as well as CBI in the VVIP Chopper Scam.

The CBI has alleged that there was a loss of 2666 crores to the exchequer in the VVIP Chopper deal and ED has alleged that Christian Michel received approximately 225 crores from Agusta Westland during the deal.

-India Legal Bureau