By IANS
New Delhi : The Andhra Pradesh government’s proposal to release 1,500 prisoners, including the convict husband of a Congress legislator, to mark the 60th anniversary of the country’s independence was halted by the Supreme Court Thursday.
A bench of Justices B.N. Agarwal and D.K. Jain also issued notice to the government seeking its reply within four weeks, following a petition by R. Chandrashekhar Reddy, a lawyer from Andhra Pradesh.
The bench questioned the rationale of releasing habitual criminals, convicted on heinous charges.
“At this rate you might as well release the people involved in the Nithari killings and the Mumbai blasts,” the bench remarked sarcastically, questioning the Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy government’s rationale for setting free 1,500 of the 6,500 prisoners in the various jails of the state.
Rejecting Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam’s argument that the state was finalising the list of the prisoners for release after detailed evaluation of their behaviour and conduct in the jails, the bench shot back: “What about their heinous crimes outside the jail?
“Such habitual offenders are menace to society. We also need to consider the impact of their crime on the society,” it said.
It, however, allowed the government to continue preparing the list of prisoners eligible for release after evaluating their conduct.
The prisoners set to be released included ruling Congress legislator Charitha Reddy’s husband Gouru Venkat Reddy, convicted on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and jailed for 10 years.
Reddy had been given life sentence by the trial court on charges of murder, but the Andhra Pradesh High Court reduced his jail term after convicting him on the lesser charge of culpable homicide.
Reddy was in 2005 granted pardon by then state governor Sushilkumar Shinde, currently union power minister. Shinde’s order granting remission to the legislator’s husband, however, had been set aside by the Supreme Court last year.
The state government’s move to set free a large number of hardcore and notorious criminals was challenged Tuesday by advocate Reddy who practises at the apex court.
In his petition, the lawyer has contended: “The release of such a huge number of prisoners has become a regular phenomenon in Andhra Pradesh. While releasing such prisoners the government pays scant regard to the sentiments of the victims of these criminals. It neither assesses its impact on the morale of the police force nor on the criminal justice system of the state.”
He also challenged the state government’s tendency to relax the eligibility criteria to grant remission to the prisoners.
“Earlier the lifers were eligible for remission of their sentences only after serving 14 years of jail term. But since 1995, the government has been consistently relaxing the norm for grant of remission to the prisoners,” said Reddy.
“The government has now begun giving remission to lifers up to three years even after the completion of seven years of jail term by them,” he said, adding that other prisoners, jailed for less than life term too become eligible for remission of their sentences after completing half of their terms.
The petitioner termed the government’s decision to release 1,500 prisoners as irrational, illogical and illegal.