Supreme Court mooting pan-India framework to deal with remission requests of eligible convicts; orders NALSA to frame draft guidelines

The Supreme Court on Monday tasked National Legal Services Authority [NALSA] to frame guidelines to govern the manner in which requests made for remission by convicts who have served minimum sentence as required by the respective State policies, should be dealt with (Sonadhar v. State of Chhattisgarh)..The guidelines should also deal with whether such a policy can be in place for Narcotic matters and how legal assistance can be provided in matters of lesser sentence as and when the cause arises rather than years later, a Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hemant Gupta said. ."We are of the view that the National Legal Services Authority [NALSA] should take up the task of having a comprehensive guideline in this behalf i.e. how the matter of seeking remission after serving minimum sentence as per the respective State policies should be dealt with, whether in narcotics matters there should a policy and if so, to what effect, how in matters of lesser sentence can legal assistance be provided when the cause arises rather than years later etc," the Court ordered..Once NALSA examines the issue and submits a comprehensive report, the Court will consider giving approval to the same for uniform application all over the country, the Court added. .Importantly, the Court noted that one of the detenus/convicts in Haryana, one Amit Mishra, had prepared a software in this regard which the State Government of Haryana itself is implementing. ."The feasibility of adopting that on a country wide basis with modifications, if any, can also be explored," the Court said. .The directions came in a case regarding extension of legal assistance to convicts in narcotics matters. The issue stemmed from the case of one Dayalu Kashyap who was found in possession of 21 kilos of marijuana in 2010 and was convicted and sentenced to ten years imprisonment. He completed his ten years sentence in September 2020 and is currently undergoing one year default sentence due to non payment of fine..Amicus Curiae Devansh Mohta submitted before the Court that Kashyap’s case presents the perfect case trajectory to demonstrate “collective failure of the state to provide proper legal assistance to person in jail.”Pertinently, Mohta in his submissions raised the issue of the inability of prisoners to discern court order and directions. NALSA’s attention was drawn to review this process and help prisoners understand court orders..Amicus Curiae Gaurav Agrawal, who is examining measures which can be taken to reduce delay in premature release of eligible life convicts, dealt with the issues faced in locating trial court documents relating to the case. Applications for premature release have to be accompanied by a number of documents connected to the case including documents from trial court. .Agrawal suggested that if the jail superintendent has difficulty in locating the files, District Legal Services Authority can be contacted to find the trial court order. If even then it is not available, then a non-availability certificate can be sent to the jail superintendent, he said. .Agrawal also made detailed submissions regarding the timeline to be adhered to for locating documents and how the review by the superintendent can happen every six months..The top court further noted that at times there are cases directly received by the Supreme Court from the jail and these are registered as jail cases “but there appears to be a time lag between the registration of the case and the legal assistance being rendered in this behalf.”“We call upon the concerned Registrar dealing with this issue to interact with NALSA in this behalf, so that, this aspect can also be ironed out,” the apex court ordered in this regard..The matter will be next heard on April 19, 2021..[Read Order]