Breaking | Supreme Court orders ₹25 lakh compensation for prisoner jailed 4.7 extra years in Madhya Pradesh

On Monday, the Supreme Court ordered the State of Madhya Pradesh to compensate a convict with ₹25 lakh for being confined in prison for nearly 4.7 years beyond his lawfully prescribed sentence in a rape case.

A bench comprising Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K.V. Viswanathan passed the order while severely criticizing the lapses of the State, which resulted in the unlawful extension of the convict’s incarceration. Initially, when notice was issued to the State, the Court observed that the convict had spent eight years in excess of his sentence. However, Senior Advocate Nachiketa Joshi, appearing for Madhya Pradesh, later clarified that the convict had been released on bail for some period, reducing the wrongful detention to 4.7 years.

The Court, relying on submissions made by Advocate Mahfooz A. Nazki representing the convict, directed the State to pay compensation for the violation of personal liberty. The bench also took strong exception to the “misleading” affidavits filed by the State and directed the Madhya Pradesh State Legal Services Authority to conduct a wider exercise to identify similarly placed prisoners.

The case traces back to a 2004 conviction by a Sessions Court in Madhya Pradesh under Sections 376(1), 450, and 506B of the Indian Penal Code, where the petitioner was sentenced to life imprisonment with a fine of ₹2,000. In 2007, the Madhya Pradesh High Court partly allowed his appeal and reduced the sentence to seven years. Despite this modification, the petitioner was released only in June this year, after having served more than eight additional years in custody.