New Delhi: Moved by the plight of mentally challenged undertrials languishing in jails and sanitariums for years, the Supreme Court today offered them a ray of hope to lead respectable lives by ordering their release on bail and also closing some cases.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, which perused a list of 377 cases from across the country some of which have gone without trial for over 30 years, accepted the suggestions of the lawyers assisting the court to release them.

It said cases will be closed against those "mentally unfit offenders" who have been in custody for periods more than the maximum punishment prescribed for the offence allegedly committed by them.

In cases of grievous offences in which the punishment was either life imprisonment or the death sentence, it said such prisoners will be released on bail if they have undergone five years in custody.

Medical officers would examine periodically, preferably every three months, those undertrials released on bail to ascertain whether they can stand trial. Only after certificates about their sound mental health were obtained, could the undertrials be tried in court, the Bench said adding that the sessions courts holding trial should monitor the progress of their mental condition.

Source : PTI