JAI PARKASH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Jai Parkash, the petitioner herein has filed two writ petitions seeking identical relief. The petitioner is undergoing imprisonment for life having been convicted and sentenced under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code vide judgment dated the 1st July, 1977. He was about 17 years of age at the time of commission of the offence, i.e., 10th February, 1977. His plea is that being less than 20 years of age at that time, he was entitled to be released and set at liberty within the ambit of Sub-para (b) of paragraph 516-B of the Punjab Jail Manual, as applicable to Delhi,. after completing 10 years of RI with period of remissions.

(2.) In answer to rule nisi, the respondents have filed the affidavit of Shri R.T.L. Disuza, Superintendent, Central Jail No. 2, Tihar, New Delhi. It appears to be the admitted case that the Superintendent Jail had recommended the case of the petitioner for premature release but the Sentence Revising Board in its meeting held on 25th June, 1987 had rejected the same. As the recommendations of the Board have a bearing on the decision of this case, the said minute of the meeting is being quoted :

(3.) During the course of arguments Mrs. Ahlawat raised an additional plea which was based on a decision of the Supreme Court in Hawa Singh v. Slate of Haryana, MR 1987 SC 2001. She urged that it is clear from the minutes of the said Board's meeting that the petitioner who was just about 17 years of age was kept in a Borstal institution after his conviction. His transfer to the Central Jail, Tihar thereafter from Borstal Institution, Faridkot, was not permissible under the law. Mr. Sodhi, learned counsel for the State informed us that the case of the petitioner was again to be placed before the Sentence Revising Board in its meeting to be held in January, 1988. By a letter of 3rd February, 1988, the Superintendent Jail informed the Registrar of this Court that the petitioner alongwith 13 other convicts had been ordered to be released as their unexpired portions of sentences were being remitted. Thereafter by a letter of 6th February, 1988, the Registrar was informed that the addition of the name of the present petitioner in the list of detenues-was by way of "an inadvertent typographical error". The minute of the meeting of the Sentence Revising Board held in January, 1988 has not been forwarded to us. Thus the petition is to be confined to the validity of the reasons of the Board contained in the minute (quoted above).