Delhi’s Sentence Review Board (SRB) has met only once this year against the mandatory requirement of four meetings a year, dampening chances of the early release of the prisoners serving life sentence in city jails.
The six-member SRB decides whether convicts undergoing a life term can be released prematurely upon completing 14 years.
The board is chaired by the Minister in-charge of prisons and includes the Principal Secretary (Home) and the Director General (Prisons) as members. In September last year, there were 862 men and 44 women serving life sentence in the Delhi jails.
Among the many convicts awaiting representation before the board is Sharda Jain, a former Congress councillor who was convicted of killing her fellow party councillor Atma Ram Gupta in August 2002. She has already served around 17 years in prison.
A convict whose plea is rejected by the board gets another chance to put up his/her case after a period of six months.
Among such convicts is Rajeev, alias Diwanji. He was convicted of murder and given life sentence. He has spent almost 18 years in prison but his plea for early release was rejected in the meeting held last December. He is now eligible for reconsideration. Manu Sharma, sentenced to life after being convicted of the murder of model Jessica Lal in 1999, was released after the board cleared his name in May 2020.
In Delhi, after the board clears a name, the file is sent to the Lieutenant-Governor for approval.
What rules say
The Supreme Court in the Laxman Naskar vs Union Of India case in February 2000 had ruled that if the government has framed any rule or made a scheme for the early release of convicts then those rules or schemes will have to be treated as guidelines for the pardoning powers conferred on the Governor under Article 161 of the Constitution.
The Delhi Prison Rules, 2018, state that a prisoner undergoing life sentence will be eligible to be considered for premature release immediately after serving 14 years in jail. For more serious and heinous crimes, the rules suggest premature release only after 20 years.
In December 2018, the Delhi HC had orally observed that “a convict should know why he or she is not being released while another was being released”. The observation had come on a plea by social activist and lawyer Amit Sahni seeking transparency in the functioning of the board.
The petition mentioned an instance where an inmate, Sikander Singh, died in jail awaiting the decision. It said the convict had already undergone more than 28 years of incarceration and his detention beyond 25 years was illegal and uncalled for. On his plea, the High Court had in October 2019 directed the authorities to convene the meeting periodically.
Speaking to The Hindu , Mr. Sahni said, “This year, the SRB has convened only one meeting, causing hardship to those who otherwise qualify on all parameters.”
Mr. Sahni said he had filed an RTI query with the DGP (Prisons) and the response revealed that this year the board considered a whopping 247 cases.
