Early release of life convicts: State government to move to Supreme Court

Bengaluru: The State government is shortly going to appeal before the Supreme Court to vacate the stay on the premature release of life convicts in Karnataka, who have spent minimum 14 years in prison with remission; were at no point awarded death sentence by any court and whose names have been cleared after careful scrutiny by the advisory boards set up by the Government and the Prisons Department.

“The Government order has been issued to file an appeal in the Supreme Court to vacate the stay order on the premature release of life convicts and allow the Karnataka Government to release the 260 life convicts, whose names have been cleared by the advisory boards and the Prison Department after careful scrutiny. We have clear guidelines on the premature release of convicts, which will be placed before the honourable court. None of these convicts were at any point condemned to death by any court of law,” said ADGP and Principal Home Secretary Praveen Sood.

The Prisons Department had cleared the names of 260 life convicts including two women lifers, who have spent a prison term of 14 to 20 years with remission for premature release and had sent their files to the Home Department for approval, but the government was unable to process them because of the Supreme Court order of July 9, which had directed the states not to release life convicts prematurely.

The apex court direction came while hearing the Centre’s petition, which challenged the Tamil Nadu Government’s decision to release the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case after cutting their prison terms short. When asked ADGP & IG, Prisons K.V. Gagandeep said that he has directed IG, Prisons V.S. Raja to file an affidavit seeking exemption from the apex court order on the premature release of convicts in the State.
The State government had set up advisory boards at all the eight Central Prisons in Karnataka to screen and finalise the names of life convicts, who have spent a prison sentence of more than 14 years with remission. The 260 life convicts reportedly have a clean record post conviction.

In 2006, on the 50th anniversary of Karnataka, the then H.D. Kumaraswamy government had pardoned 309 life convicts on grounds of consistent good behaviour, ill-health and report from the jurisdictional superintendent of police that their release would not harm society. Since then there have been no en masse release of life convicts in the State.