101 lifers freed in West Bengal since December after serving 14 years

KOLKATA: As many as 101 lifers have been released from Bengal prisons over the last 86 days since December 2019, the largest number freed in such a short span of time, as part of a bold reformative-justice plan.
Twenty-seven prisoners, including two women, were released on Tuesday, a move that helped Bengal cross the three-figure mark. Seventy-five more are exp-ected to be released again soon. The spike follows the Calcutta High Court’s fast-tracking of a Supreme Court-mandated process that makes a court nod essential for early release of people serving life sentences.
The state can commute sentences under Sections 432 and 433 of the Criminal Procedure Code. But it can commute life sentences only after a convict has served at least 14 years.
The home secretary-chaired State Sentence Review Board reviews cases and recommends to the government prisoners found suitable for early release.
One hundred and ninety-three prisoners were released in the three-year period between 2010 and 2012. But the process underwent a change after a November 2012 apex court judgement by Justices KS Radhakrishnan and justice Madan B Lokur, which said state governments must obtain a court’s nod before exercising this power for life convicts.
Early-release numbers dropped significantly following this between 2013 and 2018; only seven were released early in a three-year period between 2016 and 2018.
This prompted the Calcutta HC to step in and expedite pending appeals and hold regular meetings with the state government, a senior government official said. This paved the way for the State Sentence Review Board. Forty-six life convicts were released following this process in December 2019; 28 more were released this January and 27 on Tuesday.
“The board has, among others, the state director-general of police and the Kolkata Police commissioner. One of the parameters taken into account is a convict’s conduct in prison,” the official told TOI. But a state government can revoke an early-release order; the convict then must return to prison.