Prison Outbreak

Indian prisons are highly overcrowded. As per the last count, put out by the National Crimes Record Bureau in 2018, the country has about four hundred and fifty thousand prisoners, a number that exceeds the official capacity by about seventeen percent. Prisons in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh have among the highest occupancy rates, over fifty percent above capacity. The COVID-19 pandemic has made Indian prisons and prisoners highly vulnerable, creating an urgent need to decongest them.

Therefore, on 16 March this year, a Supreme Court bench led by the chief justice, Sharad A Bobde, took suo motu cognisance of the situation. A week later, it ordered states and union territories to form high-powered committees for determining which class of prisoners could be released on parole or interim bail. Although the court delegated the responsibility of release to the committees, it suggested in the order that “the State/ Union territory could consider the release