PESHAWAR, Jan 4: About 150 convicts in different prisons of the NWFP have requested the Supreme Court of Pakistan to allow them remission for the period when they were under-trial prisoners.

These 150 prisoners have sent joint appeals to the Supreme Court, praying that orders should be issued for amending the outdated prison rules and granting them remissions. They have also sent a letter to the Voice of Prisoners, an organisation that tackles cases of destitute women, children and other prisoners.

The prisoners have claimed that they were affectees of a judgment of the Peshawar High Court through which the court had ruled that remissions could not be allowed to prisoners under section 382-B of the Criminal Procedure Code. The said section deals with inclusion of the period of detention of an under-trial prisoner in his or her prison term after their conviction.

Before the judgment of the high court, the prison authorities used to allow remission to the prisoners for the period when they were under-trial.

A two-member bench of the high court, while dismissing an appeal of a former additional secretary of physical planning and housing department, Akber Khan Marwat, on May 17, 2002, had ruled that remissions could not be extended to the convicts under section 382-B of the CrPC for the period when they were under-trial.

The said 150 prisoners claimed that under the prison rules different sorts of remissions were allowed to prisoners for performing various duties inside prison.

They stated that for performing labour work 5 days remissions were allowed in a month, whereas for functioning in the “langarkhana” and doing paperwork, remissions of 6 and 7 days, respectively, were allowed in a month.

However, they added, those remissions had not been given to the prisoners under the prison rules.

The applicants claimed that the Prison Rules of 1894 were outdated and should be amended in keeping with the present-day realities. They added that with the passage of time new laws were enacted through which much harsher punishments were introduced.

The prisoners claimed that in the past, a prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment had to undergo 14 years in prison, but in 1993 the life term had been extended up to 25 years.

The prisoners stated that previously bail was allowed to prisoners under section 497 of the CrPC on grounds of delay in conclusion of a trial, but the present government amended that proviso of section 497 and now the prisoners no longer enjoyed that benefit. Moreover, he added, that under the Control of Narcotics Substance Act, 1997, bail was granted to prisoners very rarely.

The applicants claimed that the trials of some of them concluded in about five years for which they were not responsible.

They added that they would be in a disadvantageous position when they would not be given remissions for that period.

They requested the Supreme Court to take into consideration their case and issue directives for amendments in the Prison Rules and allowing them remission for the period when they were under-trial prisoners.