Madurai
Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority (TNSLA) on Friday told the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court that out of the 3,538 convicts currently lodged in central prisons, open-air prisons and special prisons for women, 552 convicts had not preferred an appeal against their conviction.
A Division Bench of Justices V. Bharathidasan and J. Nisha Banu took note of the report submitted by the TNSLA Member-Secretary K. Rajasekar and directed the TNSLA to find out whether the convicts wanted to file an appeal against their conviction and if they were aware of the fact that they could prefer an appeal against their conviction.
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Earlier, the court had sought details of the convicts who had not preferred an appeal against their conviction after coming across the case of a Tirunelveli man who was languishing in prison for over 25 years as no assistance was extended to him to file an appeal.
Only in 2018, an appeal was preferred through legal aid against the life imprisonment awarded to him by the II Additional Sessions Judge, Tirunelveli, in 1996 for committing sexual assault and murder. Following the direction from the court, TNSLA with the assistance of District Legal Services Authorities collected the details of the convicts from the prisons. The case was adjourned by two weeks.