PESHAWAR, Dec 28: The officials of the prison department are in a fix due to two conflicting judgments of the Peshawar High Court regarding granting of remissions to the convicted prisoners for the period when they were going through trial.

Following a judgment of the high court in May last year, the prison department stopped allowing remissions to the convicted prisoners for their period of detention before their conviction.

Previously, when the prisoners were granted benefit of section 382-B of the Criminal Procedure Code, the prisons’ authorities used to grant remission to the prisoners for the detention period before their conviction.

It is learnt that the Abbottabad circuit bench of the high court delivered a judgment on Dec 12 through which it allowed remission to a convict for the period before his conviction. The judgment is in conflict with the earlier judgment of the high court and now the prison authorities could not decide whether to follow the previous judgment or the present one.

At present, the prisoners in the NWFP are not treated at par with prisoners in other three provinces as the prisoners there have been allowed remission for the period of detention before their conviction.

The previous judgment was delivered by a two-member bench, headed by Justice Nasirul Mulk, in a habeas corpus petition filed by a former additional secretary, housing and physical planning department, Akber Khan Marwat. Appeal against that judgment is still pending before the Supreme Court.

In that judgment, the bench, interpreting section 382-B of the CrPC and different sections of the Pakistan Prison Rules, observed that if the benefit of section 382-B was given to a convict by the trial court then the time he had spent in prison before his conviction should be counted in his sentence, but the remissions granted by competent authorities during that period should not be included in the prison term.

Under section 382-B CrPC the period of detention of a prisoner has to be considered in the prison term when a person is convicted by the trial court.

The bench observed that under Rule 206(i) of the Prison Rules remission should be calculated from the first day of the calendar month next following the date of the prisoners sentence. The court also discussed Rule 199 of the Prison Rules and observed that the said two rules clearly indicated that the remission under the Prison Rules could be earned by a convict only, who had been sentenced to imprisonment. The rules do not admit of any remissions to an under-trial prisoner.

Contrary to that judgment, the Abbottabad circuit bench, headed by Justice Abdur Rauf Lughmani, accepted a writ petition filed by a convict named Ziaur Rehman. Through the writ petition, Ziaur Rehman sought declaration to the effect that all the remissions granted by the competent authorities during the custody since his arrest from Oct 10, 2000, till his conviction on March 5, 2002, were his legal right.

The Chairman of the Voice of Prisoners, Noor Alam Khan, told Dawn that the prison authorities should follow the latest judgment of the high court instead of sticking to the previous judgment.

It would be in the interest of a large number of prisoners, he further said, adding that as trials in normal courts continued lingering on due to no fault of the accused persons, therefore, they should be entitled to remission for that period before their conviction.