Over 630 inmates of various jails in Rajasthan have been released in compliance with the Supreme Court’s recent direction to decongest prisons for preventing the spread of COVID-19. The District Legal Services Authorities filed applications for bail and parole on behalf of prisoners in the courts.
The Prisons Department has also shifted over 2,200 inmates from overcrowded jails and sub-jails to less crowded prisons. Besides, there is no inmate diagnosed with COVID-19 or showing symptoms of virus infection in any of the jails in the State.
State Legal Services Authority member-secretary Ashok Kumar Jain told The Hindu here on Monday that the bail and parole had been granted to the first-time offenders and those booked in connection with the crimes punishable with the sentence of imprisonment up to seven years.
Petty offences
The Undertrial Review Committees, headed by District & Sessions Judges, have also released the jail inmates booked for petty offences. Mr. Jain said the committees were holding weekly meetings to identify the accused who could be released during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The State government amended the Rajasthan Prisoners (Release on Parole) Rules, 1958, through a Gazette notification earlier this month by inserting a provision for special parole of four weeks for certain categories of prisoners and “deemed extension” till May 3 for the prisoners already on parole.
A high power committee headed by State Legal Services Authority’s executive chairman Justice Sangeet Lodha has issued directions for taking measures, such as creation of isolation wards in the jail, quarantine of new prisoners, including the foreign nationals, for 14 days, and inclusion of nutritious food in the dietary chart of prisoners.
98 new cases
Meanwhile, with 98 new COVID-19 positive cases detected in the State on Monday, the tally has increased to 1,576. Fifty of Monday’s cases were found in Jaipur alone. Twenty-five patients have died so far, while 205 have recovered.
