Calcutta High Court Allows Early Release Of Convict Who Had Served 23 Yrs Of Life Imprisonment Sentence For Murdering Wife & 5 Children

The Calcutta High Court has allowed a plea for early release, moved by a convict, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering his wife and five children by strangulation inside their house, as well as stabbing another tenant of the premises with a sharp weapon. 

A single bench of Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharya noted that the convict had suffered almost 23 years of imprisonment and was on parole at the present juncture. In ordering for him to not be retaken into custody, it held:

The heinous nature of the crime committed by the petitioner no.1 has been sufficiently addressed by penalizing the petitioner no.1 by way of almost twenty three years of incarceration. The mere apprehension of certain people cannot be a sufficient reason for refusing premature release to the petitioner. It is made clear that since the petitioner no.1 is already on parole which is due to end tomorrow, that is, January 4, 2024, the petitioner no.1 shall not be taken back in custody.

The petitioner had approached the Court pointing out that in their remarks on his plea for early remission, the Superintendent of the Correctional Home, as well as the Chief Probation Officer had recommended his release. 

It was argued that due to mere opposition by the police, the State Sentence Review Board (SSRB) had rejected the petitioner's plea. 

Counsel for the respondent argued that according to the police report, locals of the area were apprehensive of the petitioner's activities after he was released from prison. 

It was submitted that the nature of the petitioner's crime was heinous and although he had remarried since then, it cannot be said that his fury had mellowed. 

In perusing the arguments, the Court noted that jurisprudence in the field of remission has emphasized the need to look beyond the nature of the crime, to other tests such as the conduct of the petitioner during incarceration, the likelihood of reoffending, etc. 

It was noted that the superintendent of the correctional home had given a glowing assessment of the petitioner's conduct during incarceration and that he had been allowed more than 520 days of parole to visit his family, particularly during the pandemic, when the superintendent had recommended him for early release. 

In noting that the petitioner expressed his willingness to engage himself in agricultural work in his native village in Bihar, the Court observed that the chances of rehabilitation and reintegration of the petitioner into mainstream society cannot be ruled out. There are extremely high chances that the petitioner no.1 is fully capable and can be integrated in society afresh even after the long twenty two plus years of incarceration.

Accordingly in holding that the order of the SSRB denying remission to the petitioner merely due to the report of the police based on their interaction with "local people" was perverse and contrary to the findings of the relevant authorities such as the probation officer and superintendent of police, the Court allowed plea for remission. 

Penology is not retributive but reformative, there is no reason why the SSRB acted merely on the basis of the knee-jerk reaction of the police authorities, which is a classical case of typical patriarchy, to refuse premature release of the petitioner merely because he committed a grave crime twenty-three years back, it concluded. 

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Cal) 6

Case: Biresh Poddar and another v State of West Bengal and others

Case No: WPA 26746/2023

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