Punjab Government on Sunday allowed temporary release of prisoners beyond the maximum time period of 16 weeks in a calendar year.

For the same, the Punjab Government has promulgated ‘The Punjab Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Amendment Ordinance, 2020’, said the state Cooperation and Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa.

Divulging more, the Minister said that the step has been undertaken keeping in view the crisis precipitated by the novel coronavirus and with the intention to decongest the jails.

“The condition of the temporary release being availed of, on quarterly basis, also stands waived,” said the Minister.

Primarily aimed at decongesting the jails across Punjab to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Punjab Government in March had given parole or interim bail to around 6,000 prisoners.

As the government had earlier released around 3,000 undertrial prisoners on six-week interim bail from various prisons across the State and the period of their release set to finish, the Government has now decided to extend the parole of convicts and interim bail of undertrial prisoners further by six weeks.

The decision was taken by the Government panel, chaired by Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain of the Punjab and Haryana High Court who is also the Executive Chairman of Punjab State Legal Services Authority.

The panel noted that readmitting of such a large number of undertrials back in the jails has massive risk and can defeat the entire purpose of releasing them. It suggested that the concerned judicial officers should extend the interim bail by another six weeks or further till the notification under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, remains in force.

Even as the government panel had recommended to carry out amendment in ‘The Punjab Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Act, 1962’ to enable release of convicts on parole for more than six-week in a calendar year, the Government has taken the decision by introducing an ordinance as of now.

OUT ON BAIL, TWO HARYANA UNDERTRIALS TEST POSITIVE FOR COVID-19

Two undertrials in Haryana, who had come out on bail, have tested positive for coronavirus. They were arrested last week on rioting and other charges and subsequently released on bail from Bhondsi jail in Gurgaon.

A judge from Rewari before whom they were produced a day after their arrest and 13 others, including some court employees present during the hearing and the police officials who had escorted the undertrials, have been placed in home quarantine, officials said.

The samples of the undertrials were collected by the health department on May 12, the day of their arrest and they were out on bail the next day. On Saturday, their report came positive. The undertrials have been admitted to an isolation ward of civil hospital at Rewari. The jail authorities at Bhondsi have been informed.

Earlier, an undertrial kept in the Sonepat district jail's isolation ward was found infected with coronavirus. He was later admitted to the civil hospital.  A jail official posted in Gurgaon district had also contracted the infection a month ago when he was on leave to his hometown in Bhiwani, officials said.

Haryana Jail Minister Ranjit Singh Chautala on Sunday, however, said that there has been no case of virus outbreak in various jails in the state.

“As such there is no case of any prisoner inside the jail testing positive for coronavirus. Even in the case of these undertrials, they are kept separate and not straightway lodged with other prisoners,” he said.

The state has nearly 20,000 inmates in 19 jails, including three central prisons – one in Ambala and two in Hisar.

He said in view of the prevailing pandemic situation, Haryana government has made Covid test and 14- day quarantine mandatory for prisoners returning from interim bail, parole, furlough or remand from police to judicial custody. 

Covid test has also been made mandatory for prison staff returning to jails after availing leave on emergent grounds, Chautala said.

Such prison staff will be allowed to join back his or her regular duties only on receipt of COVID negative test report and fitness report from the Medical Officer of the jail, he said.

The Haryana government had recently extended by another six weeks the duration of parole or interim bail granted to convicted prisoners in view of coronavirus.

As many as 3,817 prisoners were released last month on interim or regular bail, parole or extended parole.

The State Government decided to release convicted prisoners facing up to seven years of sentence and undertrials liable to get similar jail terms on conviction.

WOMAN INMATE IN LUDHIANA JAIL TESTS POSITIVE FOR COVID-19

In the first case of Covid-19 at a Punjab prison, a 48-year-old woman inmate at the Ludhiana jail has tested positive for coronavirus, officials said on Sunday.

The woman, who tested positive for COVID-19 on May 1, is facing charges under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. She was brought to the prison by the Sangrur Police on April 28.

Punjab government has so far released 9,773 inmates from all the jails in order to decongest state prisons in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.

There were around 24,000 prisoners lodged in 24 jails across the state against an authorised capacity of 23,488, officials said.

The state government had decided to release convicts on parole and undertrial prisoners on interim bails.

The decision to release prisoners was taken to protect their health and restrict transmission of Covid-19 by decongestion of prisons.