CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has urged the Tamil Nadu government to revisit government order issued in 2021, governing the premature release of life convicts, with respect to the disqualification clause.
A division bench of Justices M S Ramesh and N Senthilkumar noted that Clause 2 (A) (ii) of G.O. Ms 488 of 2021 prescribes certain criteria to declare a life convict prisoner as ineligible for premature release, in respect of some lesser offences. Apparently, these disqualifications are not in conformity with a judgment of the Supreme Court.
“This is not an isolated case where this court is confronted with the G.O.s rejecting the claim of the life convict prisoners for premature release by quoting paragraph 2 (A) (ii) of G.O. Ms 488. It is high time the government revisited the disqualification clause by taking into account the dictum in P Veera Bhaarathi’s case,” it said in a recent order, quashing a G.O. denying premature release to M Rajkumar, a life convict in a murder case.
He was convicted and sentenced to life under section 302 and was imposed another two years of imprisonment under section 498 A (cruelty to wife) of the IPC.
The government denied him relief by stating that he had not completed 14 years of prison sentence as on September 15, 2023, and cited the imposition of the two-year sentence under another section, which the lower court had ordered to be served concurrently. Subsequently, Rajkumar moved the High Court.
Citing the SC order in the P Veera Bhaarathi vs State of Tamil Nadu case, the bench held that the reason cited about the two years of imprisonment for a relatively lesser offence to make him ineligible for premature release is impermissible since he had already undergone the sentence.
Further, it stated that the reason that he had not completed 14 years has become redundant since the HC already found him eligible for claiming the benefit of premature release under the same G.O. Ms 488. The bench ordered his release within a period of two days from receiving the copy of the court order.