BANKAR Vs. STATE OF M P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON the nodal controversy surfaced in this bunch of seventeen petitions the holding in Bhimbhu's case (infra) decided by the Apex Court occupies the field substantially. About that, we have no doubt at all. This we say after having made further research, once again, into the field traversed partially in Nainaram (1987 MPLJ 685 = 1987 C. Cr. J. (M. P.) 203 ). When this Court had an occasion to undertake reappraisal of Constitution Bench's decision in Maru Ram's case (AIR 1980 sc 2147), albeit in a different context. Because Shri Jain, Deputy Advocate General, insisted relentlessly that we took up and read with him the decision in State of Andhra pradesh vs. Vallabhapuram Ravi (AIR 1985 SC 870) and reappreciate in that context the implications of their Lordships' desperate holding in the causa celebre (Maru Ram), we accepted his invitation to diffuse decisively the legal tension surviving on Bhimbhu 's unstated premises.

(2.) EACH of the petitioners is a lifer whose eligibility is in issue for release on probation because of his being convicted after 18-12-1978. Indeed, the main question involved in each case is interplay of Sections 428 and 433a, Criminal Procedure Code with the provisions of Madhya Pradesh Prisoners' Release on Probation Act, 1954 and the Rules framed thereunder.

(3.) WE discharge not our constitutional duty, heeding the mandate of Article 141, and extract a small passage from the common order rendered on 16-9-1985 by their lordships in 41 petitions heard and disposed of together in the case of Bhimbhu and others vs. The State of Madhya Pradesh and others (Writ Petition No. 331 of 1985 et. al)