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Plea to amend law to enable release of old, sick and disabled prisoners

Siddharth Narrain

Minister urged to make the L-G empowered to release the convicts

NEW DELHI: Drawing attention to the Delhi Government's inability to comply with the National Human Rights Commission's recommendation that a prisoner attaining the age of 65 years undergoing a sentence of life imprisonment should be considered for premature release if he has served at least seven years of the sentence in jail, the Society for the Protection of Detainees' and Prisoners' Rights (SPDPR) has written to the Union Home Minister asking him to initiate measures to ensure that the Lieutenant-Governor of Delhi be empowered under Article 161 of the Constitution to allow for the premature release of old, sick, disabled and other deserving prisoners from Delhi's jails in the same manner as done by Governors in other States.

Pointing out that the Punjab Government in 2003 ordered the release of all persons of 70 years of age who had undergone a sentence of five years, and the Uttar Pradesh Government in 2000 ordered the release of persons of 60 years and above who were undergoing life imprisonment and completed three years of sentence, SPDPR said that the Delhi Government is unable to do so because though state governments, under section 432 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), can suspend or remit sentences of convicts, Article 161 of the Constitution only empowers governors of states to consider remissions of sentences of prisoners, and does not apply to the Lt. Governor of Delhi.

The Lt. Governor of Delhi, in an order dated July 12, 2000, after considering the recommendations of the NHRC, constituted a National Capital of Delhi (N.C.T.) Sentence Reviewing Board to review the sentence awarded to prisoner undergoing a life sentence convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction in Delhi. The Board is supposed to make recommendations to the Lt. Governor about cases of premature release in appropriate cases.

One of the categories of prisoners eligible to be released under this order are convicted prisoners undergoing a sentence of life imprisonment who have served seven years.

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