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The Centre on Friday informed the Supreme Court that Section 479 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 (BNSS), the replacement of the Code of Criminal Procedure, will apply to all undertrials in pending cases that were registered before July 1.
The court, after taking note of the submission made by the Centre, said that Section 479 of BNSS would apply retrospectively to the undertrials across the country. Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Centre, submitted before the bench of justices Hima Kohli and Sandeep Mehta stating, "Section 479 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 (BNSS) will apply to all undertrials in cases that were registered before July 1, 2024." In the last hearing senior advocate Gaurav Agrawal, Amicus Curiae flagged a provision under Section 479 relating to the maximum period for which undertrial prisoners can be detained. He had drawn attention to the first proviso of Section 479 to urge that a first-time offender is required to be released on bond by the Court if he has undergone detention for the period extending up to one-third of the maximum period of imprisonment specified for such an offence under a particular law. He had also submitted that the said provision needs to be implemented at the earliest and it will help in addressing over-crowding in prisons. The court was hearing a suo motu petition initiated by it to deal with the overcrowding of the prisons in the country. The top court on Friday directed the superintendent of jails across the country to process the applications of the first-time undertrials through the concerned courts upon the completion of one-third of the period mentioned in the sub-section of the provision. (ANI)
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