Faster Bail

The right to seek bail is implicit in the Constitution. In a laudable move, a CJI-led bench announced the FASTER system whereby prisoners granted bail will no longer have to wait for a physical copy of the order to reach jails for their release

- Akarsh Sharma and India Legal News Service

ON July 16, 2021, a Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana and Justices L Nageswara Rao and AS Bopanna took suo motu cognisance after a newspaper reported a shocking story of the failure of the jail system.

The story was about 13 convicted prisoners, languishing in Agra Central Jail for 14-22 years who moved the Supreme Court (SC) on the grounds that they were declared juveniles by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) at the time of committing the offense. The apex court bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and V Ramasubramanian granted them interim bail. Though the maximum period of imprisonment under the Juvenile Justice Act is three years in juvenile homes, these underage prisoners had spent their time in jail with hardcore criminals.

Later, on July 16, a bench headed by CJI Ramana observed that the jail authorities in Agra waited till the bail order arrived by post to release the convicts. The bench took upon itself the task to ensure that such a situation does not arise in future. It announced the rolling out of a new scheme called “Fast and Secured Transmission of Electronic Records” (FASTER) system while stating that “we are in a time when we use information technology tools, and we are still looking at the skies for pigeons to communicate orders” while criticising jail authorities for insisting that bail orders be sent through post and delaying the release of prisoners. The bench further stated: “It is too much that prisoners have to wait even after the Supreme Court has granted bail as jails are insisting on the bail order to come by post.”