Onus on Uttar Pradesh to ensure undertrials allowed bail are released, says Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has said the onus rests on Uttar Pradesh to ensure that undertrial prisoners granted bail do not continue to languish in jail due to their inability to meet the conditions of their release, such as furnishing bail bonds, cash security or providing local sureties.

The order was passed by a Bench headed by Justice M.M. Sundresh on learning that of the 264 undertrial prisoners who were allowed bail in just 20 of the 75 districts in the nation’s most populous State, only 158 could be released after satisfying the bail conditions imposed by trial courts. The remaining 106 had to continue behind bars for various reasons, including their inability to provide financial security or a guarantor to back them.

Senior advocate Gaurav Aggarwal, the court’s amicus curiae, submitted that this was the situation in only 20 districts. Statistics from the other 55 districts of Uttar Pradesh on undertrial prisoners forced to stay back in jails due to their impoverishment were yet unknown.

Uttar Pradesh counsel assured the court that “the needful would be done within a reasonable time”.

The court had earlier tasked the District Legal Services Authorities in Uttar Pradesh to reach out to these prisoners and provide them legal aid.

Private lawyers

In a significant direction, the apex court said legal services authorities should not turn their back on undertrial prisoners who had private lawyers but still could not comply with bail conditions.

“Merely because private lawyers have been engaged, the assistance from the District Legal Services Authority counsel cannot be denied… There cannot be any differentiation between the undertrial prisoners who have the assistance of the District Legal Services Authority and those who have engaged private counsel,” the court reasoned.

The court said both categories of undertrial prisoners face the same hurdle of being denied freedom despite having got bail. Denial of personal liberty, despite being found to deserve it by a court of law merely because they could not financially afford the conditions imposed by trial courts, affected their fundamental right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution.

“In any case, the onus lies on the State to make sure that these persons are released from custody,” the Bench underscored.

The apex court also requested the trial courts concerned to modify the conditions suitably to enable the release of undertrial prisoners on bail. The court made it clear that its order would apply to the benefit of undertrial prisoners across the 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh.

The court listed the suo motu case, ‘In re policy strategy for grant of bail’, for hearing in January 2027.