HC asks trial courts, jail authorities to deduct convicts’ pre-trial custody periods

The High Court has directed trial courts and jail authorities to deduct convicts’ pre-trial custody periods from their total jail terms as Section 35A of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898 requires. 
A circular issued by the High Court Division registrar Abu Syed Diljar Hussain on May 29, also directed the trial courts to immediately release the convicts whose pretrial custody exceeded their jail terms.
The HC said that there was no bar for the jail authorities to deduct the pretrial custody period of convicts and release them if their pre-trial custody period had exceeded their jail terms even if the trial courts does not mention that the law requires such deductions. 
The circular said that High Court noticed that the trial courts often remain silent about the deduction of pretrial custody periods in their verdicts.
It said not deducting the pre-trial custody periods either by trial courts or the jail authorities constitute clear violations of the law.
The High Court circular said a convict would get this deduction in each and every conviction if he or she had been convicted in more than one case.
The High Court’s circular was issued at a time when thousands of accused languished in jail custody often exceeding the jail terms they could get and the poor became such victims due to failure to complete trials in due time.
The Supreme Court chapter of the state-run National Legal Aid Service Organization called it a matter of worry that at least two accused had already been in jail custody awaiting trial for 18 years. 
Quoting jail documents, it says, until December 462 accused were in the custody of jails, ranging from five to 18 years, awaiting trial. 
Earlier in November 3, 2015, a High Court bench asked the jail authorities to explain the legality of causing 43 prisoners to serve in Sylhet Central Jail without deducting the period of their pre-trial custody from the sentences.
The bench of Justice Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque and Justice Abu Taher Md Saifur Rahman issued the rule after hearing a public interest litigation writ petition filed by Ain o Salish Kendra challenging the legality of not deducting the period of pre-trial custody of the 43 convicts.
ASK said in the petition that the prison authorities were depriving convicts of their right to get the deduction.
Section 35 A(1), stipulates, ‘Except in the case of an offence punishable only with death, when any court finds an accused guilty of an offence and, upon conviction, sentences such accused to any term of imprisonment, simple or rigorous, it shall deduct from the sentence of imprisonment, the total period the accused may have been in custody in the meantime, in connection with that offence.
‘(2) If the total period of custody prior to conviction referred to in sub-section (1) is longer than the period of imprisonment to which the accused is sentenced, the accused shall be deemed to have served out the sentence of imprisonment and shall be released at once, if in custody, unless required to be detained in connection with any other offence; and if the accused is also sentenced to pay any fine in addition to such sentence, the fine shall stand remitted.’ 

 

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