Supreme Court Closes Case On Delay In UP Undertrial's Release, Says Addl Sessions Judge Was Wrongly Blamed In Inquiry

The Supreme Court today(December 16) closed the matter in which it made some critical remarks against the Uttar Pradesh prison authorities for delaying the release of an undertrial on bail by 28 days just because one clause of a provision was missing from the bail order. Before closing the matter, the Court expressed that it is pained to note that the whole blame for not releasing the undertrial was put on an Additional District and Sessions Judge when he was not at fault. A bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice KV Viswanathan was hearing a matter in which the undertrial, Aftab, who has been booked under the UP Unlawful Religious Conversions Prohibition Act, approached the Court with a miscellaneous application praying that he may be released. It was then that the Court noticed that he was not released over a clerical omission, as the bail order mentioned Section 5 of the UP Act and not Section 5(i), which was the appropriate provision. The Court had in June reprimanded the authorities and directed the State to pay him an interim compensation of Rs 5 lakhs. The Court had also directed the Principal District and Sessions Judge, Ghaziabad, to conduct an inquiry into the matter. The bench was surprised to note that the enquiry report of the District Judge blamed the Additional District & Sessions Judge (who passed the release order). The bench wondered how the Additional District and Sessions Judge could be blamed when he was acting in furtherance of the Supreme Court's order. When the matter came up on November 17, the enquiry report was submitted, which stated that Junaid Muzaffar, Additional District & Sessions Judge (who passed the release order), was entirely responsible for the delay. Before passing further orders, the Court sought comments/explanation from the judge. Today, when the matter was taken up, the Court pursued the comprehensive explanation filed by the judge, and after pursuing the report, it noted that the Inquiry Judge was entirely wrong to put the blame completely on the judge. Reportedly, the Inquiry Judge had mentioned in his report about Clause 92 of the UP Prison Manual, which says that the release orders should be duly authenticated. However, the report omitted to notice Clause 92A, which states that all Supreme Court orders and documents received through the FASTER(Fast and Secured Transmission of Electronic Records) system shall be deemed as e-authenticated and therefore, must be complied with.Without going any further, the Court ordered: "Our order dated 24 June 2025 speaks for itself. The same reads thus: Indeed, as observed by this Court in the order referred to above, the case on hand presents a very unfortunate scenario. After the aforesaid order came to be passed on 24 June 2025, by further order dated 25.6.2025, the Director General (Prisons), State of Uttar Pradesh, appeared before this Court on video conferencing. The Order dated 25.6.2025 reads thus...Therefore, on 27 June, the matter was again notified to report compliance on payment of Rs. 5 lakhs by way of compensation. In such circumstances above, we ordered an inquiry to be undertaken by the Principal District & Sessions Judge, Ghaziabad. Since the Principal District & Sessions Judge had passed away, we directed that the acting/ad hoc Principal Sessions Judge may undertake an inquiry and submit the report to this Court. The inquiry was undertaken, and a report 10.10.25 came to be submitted by the acting/ad hoc Principal Sessions Judge.After narrating the facts and clause 92 of the Uttar Pradesh Jail Manual, 2022, the inquiring officer observed in para 8 as under: In view of the above discussions, the officer Sri Junaid Muzaffar, Additional District and Sessions Judge, Court No. 12, Ghaziabad is solely accountable for the delay occurring in release of the accused Aftab and he did not act with full care and attention having regard to the gravity and nature of the case. Thus, the officer has been responsible for the release of the accused after an inordinate delay.In view of the specific observations as contained in para 8, we thought it fit to call for the comments from Shri Junaid Muzzafar, Additional District & Sessions Judge. Mr Junaid, Court 2, Ghaziabad, UP, forwarded a detailed report explaining all the relevant aspects of the matter. He has specifically drawn our attention to para 92(A) of the UP Jail Manual, 2022. His comments dealing with para 92(A) read thus: All orders of the Hon'ble Supreme Court and documents through the FASTER SYSTEM shall be deemed as e-authenticated and complied with.We are at pains to note that the officer who conducted has very conveniently ignored 92(A) in its report. In such circumstances, and more particularly after going through the entire report forwarded by Junaid, we are of the view that it was absolutely wrong to throw the entire blame on him. Our endeavour is to ensure that in future nothing like this happens with any undertrial prisoners/accused. It is very sad...

Supreme Court Closes Case On Delay In UP Undertrial's Release, Says Addl Sessions Judge Was Wrongly Blamed In Inquiry

Gursimran Kaur Bakshi

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