[Breaking] Supreme Court stays Rajasthan HC order which directed not to list bail pleas, sentence suspension as "extreme urgent matters"

The Supreme Court today has granted interim relief to Rajasthan High Court and stayed the order of its Single Judge Bench, which had directed the Court Registrar (Judicial) to not list bail applications and sentence suspension as "extreme urgent matters" during the lockdown period. [High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan vs State of Rajasthan].The Supreme Court order passed by a division Bench comprising Justice L Nageswara Rao and Justice Deepak Gupta reads, .Issue Notice. In the meanwhile, there shall be interim stay of the directions in paragraph 15 and 16 of the order dated 31.03.2020 in S.B.Criminal Miscellaneous Second Bail Application No.17767 of 2019.Supreme Court order.Senior Advocate Vijay Hansaria and Senior Advocate Gopal Jha had appeared for the petitioners, i.e., Rajasthan High Court in the matter. .Justice Pankaj Bhandari of the Rajasthan High Court had recently directed the Registrar (Judicial) to refrain from listing bail applications and appeals for suspension of sentence as "extreme urgent matters" during the nationwide 21-day Coronavirus lockdown period. [Shahrukh S/o Juharu Khan vs State of Rajasthan]. .[Coronavirus Lockdown] Bail applications, appeals under SC/ST Act, sentence suspension not "extremely urgent matters", Rajasthan HC.The Rajasthan High Court had stated that if a bail application or an appeal under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 [SC/ST Act] is allowed, many other procedures such as sending order to the Court, appearance of sureties before the Court, and presence of advocates for identification of sureties would follow..This would only increase the workload of the courts considering the present health pandemic, it was noted. .The Court also held that the release of one convict would put the lives of many in danger, which would prove counterproductive to the measures taken by the state amid the complete lockdown..While passing the order, the High Court also took note of the report submitted by the Director General of Prisons, which stated that there was no overcrowding in prisons, and that regular medical checkups of existing as well as new inmates were being conducted.[Read SC order here]