Grant bail to life convicts who have spent 10 years in jail: Indian Supreme Court

Life convicts who has already served 10 years of their sentence and whose appeal has not been heard by the court should be granted bail, the Supreme Court of India said on Thursday. However, the bench of Justices also added that there can be circumstances where the bail will be denied.

Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay Sreenivas Oka were hearing several pleas concerning convicts whose appeals were pending in various high courts. Advocate Gaurav Agarwal, appointed as amicus curiae, told the apex court that 5,740 such appeals were currently pending in the courts.

When it comes to the people who have already served 14 years in prison, the apex court said that the cases should be referred to the respective governments for consideration of premature release.

While the decision will lie with the governments, India's top court suggested that the process should be completed within a fixed time period in order to decrease the number of backlogs.

The data presented by Agarwal revealed that Bihar had the highest number of cases which were eligible for premature release – 268. On the other hand, the Allahabad High Court had the highest number of appeals filed by people who have already served 14 years or more in prison – 385.

The Supreme Court of India said that the high courts need to schedule the appeals of all the eligible convicts by January 2023 and use the next four months to identify all cases that will fall under the purview of this observation.