State of India’s undertrial prisoners, plans to ease sentencing

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said that undertrials who have spent more than a third of the maximum prescribed sentence for the crime they are accused of committing should be released before Constitution Day (November 26).Highlighting the new relaxed provisions on bail for first-time offenders in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), Shah said: “Samvidhaan Din se pehle, yeh desh ke jailon mein ek bhi kaidi aisa na ho jisne apni ek tihayee sazaa kaat li hai aur abhi usko nyay nahi mila hai. (Before Constitution Day, we want to make sure there isn’t a single prisoner in the jails of India who has spent one third of his sentence in prison and still hasn't received justice.)"What does Section 479 of the BNSS, which provides relaxed bail standards for first-time offenders, state? What has the Supreme Court said on the matter? And what is the state of undertrials in India?Data on undertrial prisoners in India. Data on undertrial prisoners in India.It states that a prisoner who is not accused of offences punishable with death or life imprisonment shall be released on bail if she has “undergone detention for a period extending up to one-half of the maximum period of imprisonment specified for that offence under that law”.

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This same standard was provided under the previously applicable Section 436A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC).But the BNSS has also relaxed the standard further in cases concerning “first-time offenders” — requiring such accused persons to be released on bail after they have spent one-third of the maximum possible sentence in prison.It states, “Provided that where such person is a first-time offender (who has never been convicted of any offence in the past) he shall 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 offence under that law”.The provision, however, clarifies that an accused “shall not be released on bail by the Count” if there are pending investigations or trials into more than one offence or in “multiple cases” relating to the same person.Top court's interpretation