New Delhi: The Supreme Court has directed every State and Union Territory to formulate, within three months, a comprehensive policy for the early or premature release of convicted prisoners who are of advanced age or terminally ill, holding that their continued incarceration in the absence of structured release mechanisms raises fundamental questions about proportionality, dignity and the moral legitimacy of punishment.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta was hearing a writ petition filed by the National Legal Services Authority under Article 32 of the Constitution, seeking bail and release for prisoners identified through NALSA's nationwide Special Campaign for Old Prisoners & Terminally Ill Prisoners, conducted between December 2024 and March 2025.
NALSA's petition drew on data from the NCRB's Prison Statistics India Report, 2022, which recorded 1,33,415 convicted prisoners across the country, of whom 27,690 were aged 50 years or above. Through its campaign, NALSA identified 5,393 prisoners nationally as falling within the vulnerable categories of old age or terminal illness, of whom 11 convicts were terminally ill and 84 were above the age of 70, spread across seventeen States and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. The petition traced the issue back to a 2010 Government of India advisory on the treatment of terminally ill prisoners, issued pursuant to directions of the Delhi High Court, and pointed to continuing systemic inertia in its implementation, including the case of a 93-year-old woman prisoner in Karnataka whose release required direct intervention before this Court.
Only the States of Bihar and Himachal Pradesh filed counter affidavits. Bihar informed the Court that of thirteen prisoners identified in the State, three had already been released pursuant to orders of the State Sentence Remission Board, while others remained under consideration or in the appellate process. Himachal Pradesh stated that it had no terminally ill prisoners but seventeen elderly inmates, and expressed no objection to the grant of bail to prisoners identified under the campaign, subject to the satisfaction of the trial courts.
Delivering the judgment, Justice Mehta observed that the treatment of vulnerable persons within the prison system reflects a constitutional democracy's commitment to the rule of law, noting that the guarantees of dignity and humane treatment continue to operate even behind prison walls.
“Prisons, though instruments of lawful confinement, are not spaces where constitutional values are suspended.”
The Court relied on its earlier rulings in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India and Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration to hold that Article 21 encompasses the right against cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, and drew on Dr. P. Varavara Rao v. National Investigation Agency and Rasik Chandra Mondal v. State of West Bengal, where bail was granted on grounds of advanced age and medical vulnerability. It also referred to the Law Commission's 268th Report, which recommends mandatory bail where an accused suffers from a life-threatening condition and adequate medical care is unavailable in custody, as well as international instruments including the UNODC Handbook on Prisoners with Special Needs, the Nelson Mandela Rules, and India's obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ICCPR.
While recognising that prisons fall within the exclusive legislative domain of the States under Entry 4 of List II of the Seventh Schedule, and that the Court could not supplant the role of the executive or legislature, the bench held that judicial restraint could not be equated with judicial abdication where systemic rights violations persisted.
“Constitutional restraint cannot be equated with constitutional abdication ... this Court cannot remain a passive spectator.”
The Court accordingly directed all States and Union Territories to notify, in consultation with the State Legal Services Authorities, a policy defining eligibility for early release, adopting a uniform definition of terminal illness drawn from the UNODC Handbook. The policy must provide for independent Medical Boards to certify terminal illness, time-bound and reasoned procedures for processing applications, and integration with Under Trial Review Committees and the National e-Prisons Portal, which is to digitally track every application from submission to final decision. States may adopt or adapt the implementation framework proposed by NALSA, annexed to the judgment as Schedule A.
The Union of India, through the Ministries of Law and Justice, Home Affairs and Electronics and Information Technology, was directed to extend technical and infrastructural support for the e-Prisons portal, while the Union and all States and Union Territories were directed to file compliance affidavits within six months. The Registry was also directed to implead the remaining States and Union Territories that had not been arrayed as parties. The matter has been listed for further consideration on 19th January, 2027.
Case Title: National Legal Services Authority vs. Union of India & Ors.
