The Supreme Court on Friday mandated the release on bond of all first-time undertrial prisoners who had served one-third of their sentence under Section 479 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS).

Under the earlier CrPC provision of Section 436A, the release of an undertrial prisoner on bond was mandated only when the prisoner had served half of his sentence of imprisonment.

The bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Sandeep Mehta passed the direction after the Centre, through additional solicitor-general Aishwarya Bhati, informed the court that Section 479 of the BNNS would apply retrospectively.

The top court was dealing with a suo motu petition it had taken up in 2013 to deal with overcrowded jails and had been periodically passing orders to decongest them.

The Supreme Court had appointed senior advocate Gaurav Agrawal as an amicus curiae in the case. In the last hearing, Agrawal had submitted that the BNNS, which has replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, had a provision under Section 479 relating to the “maximum period for which undertrial prisoner can be detained”.

He had drawn the court’s attention to the first proviso of Section 479 to urge that a first-time offender is required to be released on bond by the court if he has undergone detention for the period extending up to one-third of the maximum period of imprisonment specified for such an offence under a particular law.

Agrawal had submitted that the said provision needed to be implemented at the earliest to help address overcrowding of prisons.

The bench had then told Bhati to let the court know about the Centre’s view
on whether the provision mandated retrospective application.

When the matter came up for hearing on Friday, Bhati informed the court that the intention behind bringing in the amendment was to decongest the jails. Therefore, the new law can be applied to release the prisoners who have served one-third of their detention period on bond.

The bench directed all jail superintendents in the country to take steps to release such undertrial prisoners on bonds within three months.