M A I N   N E W S

Haryana to go by SC verdict
Premature release of life convicts
S.S. Negi
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, July 20
The Hooda government in Haryana has assured the Supreme Court that it would abide by any direction passed by it with regard to the premature release of life convicts by the previous Om Prakash Chautala regime. The assurance to this effect was given by Haryana’s standing counsel in the Supreme Court, Mr Ajay Siwach, to a Bench of Mr Justice S.N. Variava and Mr Justice A.R. Lakshmanan, with the state government taking an entirely different stand with the change of guards.

Earlier, the Chautala government had justified its action on commuting the sentence of several prisoners convicted in murder cases and serving life sentence in various jails of the state after it was challenged in the apex court.

The stand of the previous government was that their remission of the sentence was granted as per the law by the Governor on recommendation of the state Cabinet, which had examined their cases on merit, considering the facts that many of the released prisoners were the sole bread earners in the family.

The Bench directed Mr Siwach to produce within four weeks records of all pardoned prisoners, whose sentence was remitted by the Chautala government.

After the release of several prisoners, especially during 2003, some of them even after serving nearly three years of sentence, it was challenged in the Supreme Court in two public interest litigations (PILs) by advocate Anil Sharma and the Society for Human Rights and Civil Liberties (SHRCL), respectively.

Sharma’s counsel senior advocate G.L. Sanghi and the counsel for the SHRCL alleged that the prisoners, who were sympathisers of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), headed by Chautala, were released in violation of the rules and procedures laid down in the law for remission of the sentence of the convicts.

Citing Supreme Court’s earlier rulings on the issue, Sanghi contended that the apex court had the power to cancel the grant of pardon to any one, if it was given in violation of the rules.

Mr Siwach told the Bench during the hearing on the PILs yesterday that the state Government under law could not take any action on its own to correct the mistake, if any, committed while processing the cases of remission of sentence but it would abide by the direction issued by the court.

The petitioner had alleged that some hardcore criminals, convicted in murder cases by the courts and whose sentences were confirmed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court and even by the apex court, were granted remission and released from jails prior to the last election with a view to help the INLD in elections.

Though the petitioners had not furnished any list of how many prisoners were actually released, their counsel during arguments at the time of admission of the PILs had alleged that their number could be over 100.