Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (MS)

Bengaluru, Mar 29: State Legal Services Authority has decided to consider allowing convicts who are serving less than seven years of sentence to go back to their homes on parole, and also provide interim bail to undertrials who have committed crimes that attract a maximum sentence of seven years.

This decision has been taken by the high level committee presided by Aravinda Kumar, senior judge of high court and executive president of Karnataka State Legal Services Authority based on the directions given by Supreme Court. This has been done to prevent the spread of coronavirus among prisoners.

According to the new measure, temporary parole would be given to prisoners who are serving less than seven years of sentence, if they agree, and interim bail to undertrials who have committed offenses that will attract maximum of seven years of sentence.

The corresponding district and sessions judge has to inspect these cases and give report to the authority. The high level committee has directed district judges, presidents of juvenile justice boards and member secretaries of district legal services authority to give their opinions on administration and law in the video conference that will take place on March 30.

Rajaneesh Goyal, additional chief secretary of home department, Umesh Kumar, chief secretary of law department, Alok Mohan, DGP of state prisons department, P V Anand Reddy, DIG and Amar Kumar Pandey, ADGP of law and order department were present in the meeting.