Supreme Court raps UP prison authorities over delay in releasing undertrial

THe sublime margaret court has pulled up the Uttar Pradesh prison house authorities for delaying the resign of a moslem undertrial, charged under an anti-conversion law, by nearly a month, despite a clear bail order passed by the apex court, calling it “very sad” and “unfortunate” that a person’s liberty was curtailed on the basis of a trivial technicality.A bench of justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan lamented that the undertrial continued to remain behind bars for almost a month after being granted bail merely because a sub-clause of a statutory provision was not mentioned in the release order, even though all essential particulars were available.“It is very sad that despite being released on bail by the highest Court of this country, the under-trial accused had to remain behind the bars for almost one month from the date of the order of release on a very technical ground,” the bench noted in an order last week.The Supreme Court underscored the binding nature of the Fast and Secured Transmission of Electronic Record (FASTER) system, referring to Section 92A of the Uttar Pradesh Jail Manual, 2022. The provision mandates that all orders transmitted through the Supreme Court’s FASTER system are deemed “e-authenticated” and must be complied with immediately by jail authorities to prevent delays in release.“Had the authority paid due attention to Section 92A of the Jail Manual, then probably this situation could have been avoided,” said the bench, directing the Director General of Prisons, Uttar Pradesh, to ensure that jail officials remain vigilant in future.The case related to an undertrial accused of offences under Section 366 (kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 3 and 5 of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. The Supreme Court had granted him bail on April 29, 2025, directing that he be released during the pendency of trial on terms to be fixed by the trial court.Pursuant to this, an additional district and sessions judge in Ghaziabad issued a release order on May 27, 2025. However, the jail authorities refused to release the accused on the ground that the release order did not specifically mention sub-section (1) of Section 5 of the 2021 Act, prompting the jailor to move a correction application. As the application remained pending, the accused continued to be incarcerated.Terming this approach a “travesty of justice”, the Supreme Court, in a previous order, had called it unacceptable that liberty was denied despite there being no ambiguity about the identity of the accused, the crime number, police station, or the offences involved.The bench had noted that once basic particulars are available, “nitpicking of Court’s orders and on that pretext not implementing them and keeping the individual behind bars is a serious dereliction of duty”.The court also relied on a 2012 Allahabad High Court judgment which had cautioned against subordinate courts insisting on exhaustive particulars in bail orders and refusing to accept bail bonds on hyper-technical grounds. If courts themselves are not expected to adopt such an approach, the bench had in June order said, there was “no reason why this should not be the position for the Executive”.The court had also ordered an enquiry into the delay and granted the undertrial an ad hoc compensation of ₹5 lakh, observing that monetary relief was the only way to partially mitigate the loss of liberty suffered by him.While an enquiry report initially fixed responsibility on an additional district and sessions judge, the Supreme Court later rejected this conclusion, noting that the enquiry officer had “very conveniently ignored” Section 92A of the Jail Manual. The bench clarified that the judicial officer was “in no manner responsible” for the lapse and said it was wrong to place the entire blame on him.Emphasising the constitutional dimension of the issue, the bench reiterated that personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution is a very valuable and precious right that cannot be bartered away on the altar of technicalities.The court expressed hope that no other undertrial or convict was languishing in jail on similar grounds and said the prison administration must focus on the substance of judicial orders rather than looking for trivial or irrelevant errors to deny liberty.“Our endeavour today is to ensure that in future nothing like this happens with any under-trial prisoner,” said the bench last week.