MAGHAR SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE are seventy-four petitions Nos. 368-M, 370-M, 372-M, 171-M, 173-M, 239-M, 279-M, 280-M, 294-M, 296-M, 298-M, 300-M, 310-M, 311-M, 503-M, 504-M, 506-M to 515-M, 517-M to 524-M, 550-M, 552m, 553-M, 555-M, 557-M, 559-M, 561-M, 589-M to 592-M, 610-M, 611-M, 682-M to 688-M, 723-M, 725-M, 744-M, 745-M, 802-M, 821-M, 823-M to 825-M, 955-M, 1034-M to 1039-M, 1060-M, 1062-M, 1063-M and 1084-M of 1981 preferred by the petitioners undergoing life sentences seeking directions of this Court to wake the State Government out of its slumber, so that they avail the benefits of Para 516-B of the Punjab Jail Manual. It is not necessary to set out facts of any particular petition. In some of these cases, the respective Superintendents of Jails incarcerating the petitioners have recommended their cases for remission of sentences to the appropriate Government, In others, no such proposals have yet been made. The averments made in some petitions have either been admitted that those cases are due for recommendation and in others the facts remain undisputed for the present. So far as the disposal of all these petitions is concerned, as has been advised by the learned Counsel for the State, it can be taken that the cases of the petitioners are with the Government, recommended or otherwise, for exercise of powers to remit the sentences Under Section 432, Criminal P. C. That such course has to be adopted by the appropriate Governments is not a matter of dispute any longer in view of the authoritative pronouncement of their Lordships of the Supreme Court in Maru Ram v. Union of India, and a few judgments of this Court based thereon.

(2.) THE relief which the petitioners now seek through these petitions is threefold (1) that direction be issued to the appropriate Government to consider and decide their cases of remission forthwith; (2) that the Government be directed to decide these matters within a particular period and, (3) that during the pendency thereof, the petitioners be released on bail.

(3.) POINT No. 1, as said before, in the initiation is not disputed, rather it is stated at the bar that the Government was keen to decide these matters, subject of course to the cases otherwise being due for remission. It was also stated at the bar by the learned Counsel for the State that a high level meeting had been arranged by the State Government for 5th Mar. 1981, but due to unavoidable circumstances the same could not be held. Be that as it may, the Government is now directed to consider the cases of the petitioners for remission of their sentences in the light of Maru Ram's case 1980 Cri LJ 1440 (supra ).