The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court quashed an order of the Uttar Pradesh government which had denied the premature release of a 79-year-old murder convict who has already served 25 years in jail, including remission. The court found the government's order to be stereotypical and directed the government on Wednesday to take a fresh decision on the convict’s application for the release within a period of six weeks. “The impugned order passed by the state government is only based on the finding that by granting premature release to the petitioner, it will send out a wrong message about the judicial system to society,” the court stated in its order. It was hearing the petition of Munna, who was booked in a murder case lodged at the Sadabad police station in Hathras in 1979. “This court further finds that there is no such consideration in the impugned order as directed by the Apex Court. The petitioner is aged about 79 years and he has undergone total sentence, with remission, of above 25 years. He has not committed any offence affecting society at large. There is no chance of any recurrence of crime by the petitioner at such an advanced age,” it further added. It ordered that the state government should take into consideration “the policy of the state government dated 01.08.2018, provisions of the U.P. Prisoners Release on Probation Act, 1938 and the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Rishidul Jafar @ Chota (Supra)” and communicate their decision to the court “along with an affidavit of a responsible officer of the state government”. The counsel for the convict had submitted that in compliance with an order from the Supreme Court, Munna had been taken into custody from his house in March this year and has since been languishing in Central Jail, Agra. In April 1980, a local court in Hathras convicted Munna to life imprisonment, a decision upheld by the High Court in February 1999. After completing 25 years of incarceration, including remission, Munna approached the Supreme Court and obtained bail, walking out from jail in 2018. Meanwhile, on May 15, 2017, the state government rejected the convict's application for premature release despite acknowledging his good conduct. Consequently, the Supreme Court dismissed the convict's writ petition in January this year, granting him the liberty to approach the High Court to challenge the state government's order of May 2017.
