Supreme Court allows states to release life convicts, but with riders

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed all states and Union territories to grant remission to life convicts who were jailed for over 14 years. A five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justices Ibrahim Kalifulla, A.M. Sapre, Pinaki Ghose and U.U. Lalit, in an interim order, modified the July 2014 order restraining states from granting remission to life convicts.

The bench took note of submissions from Karnataka, West Bengal and others to vacate the stay order it passed in July 2014 as several convicts who served over 20 years were languishing in jails.

Last year a three-judge bench stayed the release of seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi case - Murugan, Santhan, Periarivalan (whose death penalty was commuted to life sentence) and Nalini, Robert Pius, Jayakumar and Ravichandran, serving life terms. The bench made it clear that Thursday’s interim order will not apply to these seven convicts as this case was investigated by the CBI

The bench ruled Thursday states can exercise remission powers where murder cases were not investigated by the CBI or a Central agency; where the life sentence was only under IPC sections. This order would not apply to rape and murder cases where a life sentence was awarded, or where the court ordered the life sentence be for the whole life, or where it said remission could be considered after 20 or 25 years.