AMARJIT SINGH Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AMARJIT Singh, who was convicted and sentenced on 7.6.2003 to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 14 years and to pay fine of Rs. 1,50,000/- and in default of payment of fine to further undergo rigorous imprisonment for one year under Section 15 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (for short, 'the Act') in case FIR No. 101 dated 31.3.2001 under Section 15 ibid, Police Station Sadar, Dadri has sought his pre-mature release on the premise of Criminal Writ Petition No. 839 of 2004 bearing caption 'Ekka Ram v. State of Punjab', Criminal Misc. No. 51171-M of 2006 titled as 'Mahi Ram v. State of Haryana', Criminal Misc. No. 63825-M of 2006 captioned as 'Krishan and others v. State of Haryana' and Criminal Misc. No. M-10966 of 2008 titled as 'Dara Singh v. State of Haryana' decided on 29.9.2008.

(2.) IN the joint written statement, the respondents have inter-alia pleaded that the remission was granted by the Governor of Punjab State under Article 161 of the Constitution of India to the convicts of Punjab State on various occasions, but benefit of this remission was not granted by the jail authority of Punjab to the convicts under the Act due to embargo created under Section 32-A of the Act. In many cases, these petitions were accepted and the benefit of this special remission was allowed by this Court under certain conditions. After that, the State of Punjab filed Special Leave Petition against these orders of this High Court which is still pending. But no remissions have been granted by the Governor of Haryana under the aforesaid article. However, remissions were granted by the Haryana Government under Section 432 of Cr.P.C vide orders issued on various occasions in which it has been clearly directed that the remission will not be granted to the convicts who are convicted under the Act. As such, in view of these facts, the petitioner is not entitled for any remission.

(3.) MR . V.S. Rana, Advocate appearing on behalf of the petitioner strenuously urged that the embargo enshrined in Article 32-A of the Act in no manner affect the jurisdictional powers of the Governor of the State to grant remission in exercise of powers under Article 160 of the Constitution of India. To buttress this stance, he has sought to place abundant reliance upon the observations rendered by this Court in re : Ekka Ram (supra), Mahi Ram (supra), Krishan and others (supra) and Dara Singh (supra). concededly, the judgment in Ekka Ram's case (supra) is under challenge before Hon'ble the Supreme Court in a Special Leave Petition filed by the State of Punjab. On behalf of the petitioner, it is vehemently argued that if the disposal of the Special Leave Petition is delayed, even an ultimate favourable decision would be of no use, because the petitioner - convict would have undergone the entire period of sentence by such time. A similar eventuality was adjudicated upon by a Co-ordinate Bench of this Court (Satish Kumar Mittal, Justice) in Mahi Ram's case (supra) in which the following order Annexure P.3 was passed on 8.11.2006 :-