New Delhi: Castigating the functioning of the Sentence Review Board (SRB), Delhi High Court has said a convict’s life and existence “remains totally invisible” for the government body.Ordering the release of a rape convict who has spent over 22 years in jail serving a life term, the court faulted the SRB for ignoring his reformation and other mandatory criteria while repeatedly rejecting his plea for remission.“It is also pertinent to observe that in all the SRB meetings, over 100 cases have been considered and decided. It is difficult to comprehend how such a number of cases can be considered in one meeting in a meaningful manner,” Justice Neena Bansal Krishna noted on Monday.The judge observed that the manner in which the meetings were conducted reflected “a total disregard not only to the factors relevant for consideration of remission, but also an indifference to the inmate who, for the authority, is nothing but one name in the multitude of cases”.“The man, the life and his existence as a human being remains totally invisible in this undemocratic functioning of government machinery,” the court said.The HC pointed out that the petitioner had undergone 22 years, five months and 10 days of actual incarceration and over 28 years, eight months and 28 days including remission.“His continued detention despite fulfilling all the criteria and reflecting his complete reformation and loss of propensity to commit crime … directly impacts his right to life and personal liberty under Article 21,” the court underlined.The court found that the SRB’s orders lacked reasons and followed a “cyclostyled format”, denying remission solely on the gravity of the offense without considering the prescribed parameters. Such orders, it said, were violative of the principles of natural justice and arbitrary, irrational and contrary to policy.The court was hearing a plea by Rajab Ali, who said he was in semi-open jail since 2017 and was recommended for open jail in 2019. He was also granted emergency temporary bail during the Covid period and was employed, without showing any tendency to reoffend.
