The Supreme Court has withheld permission to grant permission to convicts pending appeal, an amicus curiae told the five-judge Larger Bench of the Madras High Court

Amicus curiae Abudu Kumar Rajaratnam informed a larger bench of the Madras High Court that until the Supreme Court decides on the matter, the convicts in Tamil Nadu could be granted leave irrespective of their pending appeals against the convictions. | Photo credit: FILE PHOTO

The Supreme Court is dealing with the issue of granting regular or emergency furlough to convicts whose conviction appeals are pending before the appellate courts, amicus curiae Abudu Kumar Rajaratnam told a larger bench of the Madras High Court on Friday (Jun 19, 2026).

He made submissions before a High Court comprising Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justices CV Karthikeyan, AD Jagadish Chandira, M. Nirmal Kumar and Sunder Mohan, referring to them on a reference made to them by Division Bench Justices N. Sathish Kumar and M. Jothiraman.

The reference was filed on 11 November 2025 after the Division Bench found that there was a conflict between the decisions of two Full Benches (consisting of three judges of the Supreme Court) in State of Tamil Nadu vs Yesu (2011) and T. Ramalakshmi vs State of Tamil Nadu (2025).

Therefore, the Division Bench directed the writ petitioner to refer the matter to the Chief Justice of the High Court with a request to constitute a larger bench to answer whether leave may be granted to a prisoner whose appeal against conviction was pending either in the High Court or the Supreme Court.

The Division Bench also directed the Registry not to entertain any application for grant of emergency leave or regular leave under the Tamil Nadu Suspension of Sentence Rules, 1982, in respect of convicts whose conviction appeals were pending before the Appellate Courts, till the reference was answered by the High Court.

After taking up the application for hearing on 10 June 2026, the Larger Bench appointed Senior Counsel Mr. Rajaratnam as amicus curiae to assist the court. Amicus did extensive research on the subject before informing the Larger Bench that the Supreme Court had already dealt with the same issue.

He said the apex court on April 2, 2024 took note that some states do not extend the benefit of furlough/parole/dismissal to prisoners whose conviction appeals were pending before the appellate courts and insisted that such prisoners can get appropriate orders from the appellate courts.

Therefore, in order to lay down the law on the subject, the Supreme Court suo motu compelled the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Telangana, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh and directed the Director Generals of Prisons in these states to publish the procedures followed by them.

Accordingly, only Haryana, Jharkhand, Punjab, Bihar and Telangana filed their replies on 16 April 2024, and therefore the Supreme Court gave another two weeks to other states to respond. Unfortunately, the case was not brought before the Supreme Court after that and the matter is still pending, the amicus said.

Mr. Rajaratnam said he would take steps to have the matter listed before the Supreme Court’s summer vacation or immediately after the vacation, and said that until the Supreme Court decides on the matter, the convicts in Tamil Nadu could be granted leave regardless of their pending appeals against the convictions.

After hearing him, Public Prosecutor R. John Sathyan and a number of other lawyers, the Larger Bench decided to issue detailed orders in a day or two.

Published – 19 Jun 2026 21:50 IST