The Supreme Court has come down heavily on the Uttar Pradesh government, expressing deep concern over the undue delay in releasing an accused from custody on minor technical grounds in the bail order.
"God knows how many people are languishing in your jails on account of technical reasons," the court questioned.
A bench of Justices K.V. Vishwanathan and N. Kotiswar Singh took serious note of the situation and directed a judicial probe by a sitting district judge. The probe will probe the delay in the release of the petitioner and find out if there was any "sinister" motive behind it.
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Additionally, the Supreme Court ordered the State of Uttar Pradesh to pay Rs 5 lakh as interim compensation to the accused who remained in jail for 28 days despite being granted bail.
During the hearing, the Court summoned the Superintendent of the concerned jail to appear in person and asked UP Director General (Prisons) to join via video conference. Both the officials complied with the Court's directions.
Senior advocate and Additional Advocate General (AAG) Garima Prasad, representing the State, argued that the petitioner was not at fault and was released following the Court's previous order. She pointed out that delays are often caused due to procedural steps, such as seeking correction of bail orders from lower courts, especially when the wrong legal sections are mentioned.
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However, Justice Vishwanathan highlighted that the Ghaziabad court's release order contained all the necessary details. It termed the petitioner's non-release in the absence of Section 5(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 in the bail order as "absurd".
The bail order already contained both Sections 3 and 5, and only Section 5(1) deals with punishment for the offence under Section 3.
"The fact that the applicant was released yesterday without any further direction makes it clear that the release order was sufficient to identify the person," the court said.
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Pointing out that there are currently around 90,000 prisoners lodged in Uttar Pradesh jails, the bench raised a serious concern:
"We don't know how many people are in jail for this reason! If you keep people behind bars for this reason, what message are we sending?"
The UP DG (Prisons) assured the court that he would call an immediate meeting with the jail superintendents to sensitize them and prevent such lapses in future.
Case Title: AFTAB Versus THE STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH, MA 1086/2025 in Crl.A. No. 2295/2025
