Hyderabad: Over 350 prisoners who were expecting remission of their sentence for good conduct in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh will not get their freedom on Republic Day.
The last remission of prisoners was announced in 2006 in undivided Andhra Pradesh during the regime of Dr Y.S. Rajashekar Reddy.
The government had released hardcore criminals along with others and faced bitter criticism.
Later, several human rights organisations had approached Supreme Court seeking remission for prisoners, and the court cleared the release of life prisoners in 2014.
Both the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments have not issued guidelines for the remission procedure to release life prisoners who have completed at least seven years of their imprisonment.
The Telangana state government and constituted a committee to prepare guidelines for remission last year, but it has not yet submitted its report to the government. Besides, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation election code has become an impediment for issuing the guidelines.
Prisons DG V.K. Singh told this newspaper: “Based on the guidelines issued by the government, we will prepare a list of prisoners with good conduct.”
In Andhra Pradesh, the prisons department had sent proposals for the guidelines to the government a few months back but the file is on hold at the Secretariat. Sources said there was a chance that the guidelines would be released this week.
