Can Prisoners Be Granted Ordinary Or Emergency Leave During Pendency Of Criminal Appeal? Madras High Court Full Bench To Decide

The bench of Chief Justice SA Dharmadhikari, Justice CV Karthikeyan, Justice AD Jagadish Chandira, Justice M Nirmal Kumar and Justice Sunder Mohan will be deciding on the following questions of law:

• Whether leave under Tamil Nadu Suspension of Sentence Rules, 1982, can be granted to a prisoner under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, when his appeal against conviction is pending either before the Hon'ble Supreme Court or this Court?

• Whether the power to exempt under Rule 40 of the Tamil Nadu Suspension of Sentence Rules, 1982 can be exercised by the State to grant leave to a prisoner outside the scope of the said Rules when his appeal against conviction is pending before the Hon'ble Supreme Court or this Court in the light of the decision of the Constitution Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in K.M.Nanavati v. State of Bombay reported in AIR 1961 SC 112?

A division bench of the High Court had directed the registry to place the matter before the Chief Justice for constitution of a larger bench to consider the question of law after finding two different views taken by two full benches of the High Court in 2011 and 2025.

The division bench had also asked the registry not to entertain any application for grant of emergency leave or ordinary leave under TN Suspension of Sentence Rules when the appeal was pending before the High Court or Supreme Court, till the question of law was decided by the larger bench.

Following this, the matter came up for hearing before the full bench on Wednesday (June 10). After going through the question of law, the bench decided to take up the plea on June 19 and also considered appointing an amicus curiae to assist the court in the matter.

Background

The bench of Justice N Sathish Kumar and Justice M Jothiraman was dealing with a batch of cases challenging the orders of prison authorities, rejecting the request for emergency/ordinary leave to convict prisoners. The prisoners had also sought granting of emergency/ordinary leave.

When the matter came up for hearing, the prisoners brought to the court's attention a full bench decision of the High Court. It was argued that only trial prisoners were not entitled to leave, and since the appeal was pending in all these cases, it could not be treated as pending trial prisoners. It was thus argued that the prisoners were entitled to leave under Suspension of Sentence Rules.

On the other hand, the State argued that the full bench decision of the High Court relied by the prisoners was in direct conflict with the judgment of the Constitution bench of the Supreme Court in K.M.Nanavati v. State of Bombay as well as another decision of the full bench of the High Court in 2011.

The court noted that the earlier full bench of the High Court in State v Yesu had held that temporary release on parole by way of administrative action and temporary release on suspension of sentence as per the Tamil Nadu Suspension of Sentence Rules were two different concepts. The full bench had observed that suspension of sentence cannot be granted to a prisoner outside the scope of Suspension of Sentence Rules.

In 2025, however, another full bench in T Ramalakshmi's case observed that as per Rule 35 of the Tamil Nadu Suspension of Sentence Rules 1982, the prison authority was empowered to grant ordinary leave. The court, however, clarified that if the prisoner is facing trial in any other case, the prison authorities could reject his leave application in limine.

The division bench thus opined that the full bench decision in Ramalakshmi's case, which said that the Government could grant leave by exempting the Rules was directly against view taken by the earlier full bench in Yesu's case. Thus, the division bench thought it fit to refer the matter to a larger bench.

Case Title: Sheefa Rani v The Secretary to Government of Tamil Nadu

Case No: WP Crl 722 of 2025