370 foreign prisoners in Delhi jails

Update: 2018-07-27 05:30 IST

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has been informed that 378 foreign prisoners, including 54 women, were lodged in Delhi prisons and that most of them were facing prosecution in drug cases in which bail was a rarity.

Regarding the status of bail, the jail authorities said out of 54 foreign women inmates in Tihar and Mandoli jails, 20 had already applied for the relief and the applications were pending in courts, pleas of seven had been rejected and 13 prisoners had not applied. 

In a status report filed by the director-general of prisons, Tihar Jail, it was stated that the details of status of bail pleas of remaining 14 foreign women prisoners were not available with the jail department. 

The report was filed before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar and the matter would be taken up for hearing on August 2. 

The court, while hearing a PIL related to the issue of denial of bail and proper phone call facility to foreign women inmates arrested in drug cases and lodged in the Tihar Jail, had earlier sought for a status report from the authorities. 

Regarding foreign men prisoners, the report said as of date 324 of them were lodged in Delhi prisons and as per the available information, 57 bail applications were filed in the courts out of which 43 had been disposed of. 

"Most of the foreign prisoners are facing trial in cases under the NDPS Act which is a special act with stringent provisions and bail is a rarity," it said. 

The report, filed in the court on July 24, also said that most of the foreign prisoners had engaged private counsel and bail applications were directly filed by them and not routed through the office of the jail superintendent concerned due to which complete details on status of their bail pleas and orders were not readily available on jail record. 

The court had earlier asked the prison authorities here to give the details of all the foreign inmates lodged in the Tihar Jail, the status of their bail pleas, and the orders passed on them. 

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