New Delhi
Delhi Police plans to move the Supreme Court to revise its May 8 order to release all inmates of Tihar and other 2 city jails to decongest them in view of the rampaging second wave on the same grounds on which they were released on bail or parole in March last year.
It may seek stricter rules like requiring the released inmates to report to the police station of their area every week and not leave their residence without an express permission of the police station since over 65% of the undertrials jumped the 3-month parole granted last year and are still absconding. No petition has yet been filed as the legal experts are examining the order passed by a Bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices L Nageswara Rao and Suryakant last Saturday to decongest the prisons across the country.
Delhi has 3 prisons — Tihar, Mandoli and Rohini — where over 19,500 prisoners are lodged as against a capacity of 10,000.
Data with Delhi Prison authorities show that of the 4,684 undertrials and convict prisoners released on interim bail last year, only 2,334 returned while 2,350 absconded, said news portal theprint.in. The undertrial prisoners accounted for 3,500, of which only 1,250 inmates returned to jails while 2,250 absconded — 65 per cent, showed the data. Among the 1,184 convicts released on emergency parole, 1,084 returned and 100 absconded.
Moreover, at least 180 of these released inmates went back to committing crime and were re-arrested in cases of robbery, snatching and theft. The role of over 200 others, who are absconding, is suspected in several cases, the web portal said.
In the past month, there’s been a steep rise in the number of inmates and prison staff infected with Covid. On April 14, 70 inmates and 11 prison staff were Covid positive. The number of positive cases went up to 535 on May 7. It included 176 staff.
