RAJIV SINGLA Vs. UNION TERRITORY ADMINISTRATION AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has preferred this petition under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India for direction to grant remissions allowed by the Chandigarh Administration vide Circulars Annexure P -6 and P -7, even though he was on parole.

(2.) The petitioner was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 8 years under Sec. 304 -B IPC besides other punishments. The conviction was upheld but the sentence was reduced to 7 years under Sec. 304 -B IPC vide judgment dated 12.12.2013 by a Coordinate Bench of this Court. The petitioner preferred SLP and was granted four weeks time to surrender. The petitioner surrendered. His SLP was later dismissed.

(3.) The case of the petitioner is that as per custody certificate dated 29.04.2015, he had undergone 5 years, 1 month and 25 days of custody including remissions. He was granted parole four times of 28 days each. The petitioner claims that he was on bail when his appeal was under consideration of the High Court and the Union Territory Administration granted special remissions on the occasion of New Year in January 2007 and the convicts undergoing sentence of 7 years were held entitled to 8 months remissions. An identical circular was issued the next year on 02.02.2008 and the petitioner became entitled to remission of 8 months. The petitioner claims that he fulfilled the criteria and was not covered under any of the exceptions of the circular and was entitled to the benefit of both the remissions even though he was on bail. It was pleaded that he was not required to be actually or physically in jail on the date the circular were issued and he was entitled to remissions of 10 months and thereby he had completed the sentence. Reliance was placed upon D. Ethiraj vs. Secretary to Government, : 2011(5) RAJ 603.