NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday took a serious objection to "useless technicalities" and "irrelevant errors" noted by jail authorities in Uttar Pradesh in not releasing a man from prison despite the bail by this court.
"Nitpicking on court orders and on that pretext not implementing them and keeping the individual behind the bar would be a serious dereliction of duty," a bench of Justices K V Vishwanathan and N Kotiswar Singh said.
The court directed the Uttar Pradesh government to pay an interim compensation of Rs 5 Lakh to the Muslim man, for releasing him from jail 28 days after furnishing bail bond merely on a technicality, emphasising that liberty is a valuable and precious right.
The man was arrested under the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act. The jail authorities declined to set him free as sub-section (1) was not mentioned in release order along Section 5 of anti-conversion law.
Considering his plea, the bench said, "God knows how many such people were languishing in jails”.
The bench deplored the conduct of the jail officials' insistence on a technicality, which violated right to liberty.
The court ordered Ghaziabad principal district and sessions judge to inquire into the matter and fasten accountability on officers responsible for causing 28 days delay in the release of the man.
Additional Advocate General of Uttar Pradesh, Garima Prashad, and Director General Prisons, Uttar Pradesh, P C Meena, joined the court proceedings through video conferencing. The jail superintendent of Ghaziabad jail was physically present before the bench.
Questioning the defence of the Uttar Pradesh government's counsel, the bench said personal liberty cannot be denied on "useless technicalities" and "irrelevant errors" when the details of the case and the offences are otherwise clear from the bail order.
The bench made it clear to the state's counsel that it was not keen to accept the justification given by her that the prisoner was not released as the bail order did not mention one particular provision.
"What is the guarantee that many other people are not languishing for this reason? Order is by this court. The order mentions the correct section, and the section will have a number of subsections, is it a valid objection at all in your experience, What do you propose to do to sensitise officers," the bench asked.
The officer assured the bench that measures will be taken to sensitise jail officials to avoid reoccurrence of such incidents.
The court called the delay of 28 days in the release of the petitioner as "unfortunate" and "preposterous".
"On this admitted fact of denial of liberty from the morning of May 28 till yesterday evening, when he was granted his liberty, we will arrive at an ad-hoc figure, which will be provisional and we will keep it on Friday for compliance of that amount," the bench said.
In view of delay in petitioner's release, the bench said the only way to remedy the situation is to order ad-hoc monetary compensation, which will be provisional in nature and ordered the state government to pay a sum of Rs 5 lakhs and report compliance on June 27.
The court said that if the inquiry report fixes any responsibility on the officers, then the compensation will be realised from them.
The court asked the state government to file an affidavit to rule out that vested interests are not involved.
On April 29, the court had granted bail to Aftab, who voluntarily converted to Hinduism and married a Hindu girl according to Hindu rites. The girl’s aunt had lodged a missing person complaint.
The man was booked under Section 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her marriage etc) of the erstwhile IPC and Sections 3 and 5 (Prohibition of conversion from one religion to another religion by misrepresentation, force, fraud, undue influence, coercion, allurement) of the 2021 Act.
