S SUDHA Vs. SUPERINTENDENT OPEN PRISON NETTUKATHERI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioners are the kith and kin of some of those who are languishing inside the prison walls for over a decade now. Their thirst for freedom has reached the brim, but they think that the jail authorities are unhelpful. Petitioners have taken up their cause.

(2.) According to the petitioners, the prisoners, whose cause they espouse, have already undergone incarceration for more than 14 years including "earned jail remissions" as well as the "set off of the remand period against the sentence. Petitioners, therefore, plea that it is high time that the Jail Advisory Board (for short 'the Board) should be apprised of the cases relating to those prisoners so that the Board can consider the question of their release. A writ of mandamus is also prayed for to direct Government of Kerala to pass orders on the recommendation of the Board.

(3.) All the prisoners involved in the Original Petition are convicts of the offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life, but were sentenced to imprisonment for life. They are confined in open prison. Under R.543 and 544 of the Kerala Prisons Rules, 1958 (for short 'the Rules') such of those convicts who have completed 2/3 portion of their sentence (including set off and remission) are initiated to have their cases considered by the Board. The Superintendent of the Open Prison, in his report, submitted that with the introduction of S.433-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short 'the Code') such prisoners are not entitled to release before the expiry of the period of fourteen years of imprisonment excluding remission and set off.