The Supreme Court of India in the case titled as Pyare Lal v. State of Haryana have framed questions to be considered by the Larger bench of the Apex Court. The question is, “Whether in exercise of power conferred under Article 161 of the Constitution a policy can be framed, whereunder certain norms or postulates are laid down, on the satisfaction of which the benefit of remission can thereafter be granted by the Executive without placing the facts or material with respect to any of the cases before the Governor and whether such exercise can override the requirements under Section 433-A of the Code.”
The judgement was delivered by the Supreme Court bench comprising of Honourable Justice(S) Uday Umesh lalit, Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar and Justice Vineet Saran on 17th July 2020.
Facts of the Case
The Appellant was convicted under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code and was sentenced to suffer life imprisonment and to other punishments including fine and default sentence under certain other offences. However, in a later application of bail, it was reported that having completed 8 years of actual sentence and the Appellant being aged above 75 years, and in accordance with the existing policy of the State, he was prematurely released in 2019.
Now, when the state Government was asked whether any policy permitted premature release even before completion of actual sentence of 14 years in connection with an offence punishable under Section 302 IPC- response by State Government indicated that on the occasion of the Independence Day i.e., 15th August, 2019, in exercise of powers conferred by Article 161 of the Constitution of India, the Governor of Haryana was pleased to grant special remission to certain categories of prisoners.
The policy order dated 02.08.2019 titled Order of the Governor of Haryana was placed before Court. According to Para 1) The convicts who have been sentenced for punishment other than life sentence and are of 75 years and above in case of male and 65 years and above in the case of female as on 15.08.2019 and have been completed 2/3rd actual sentence including undertrial period and excluding parole period and whose conduct has remained satisfactory during confinement and who have not committed any major jail offence in the last two years be released forthwith.
Also, under Para 2) of the policy certain offences where remission will not be granted were also mentioned.
The issue
Whether in exercise of power under Article 161 of the Constitution, a policy could be laid down setting out certain norms or postulates, on the satisfaction of which the benefit could thereafter be conferred upon or granted to the convicts by the executive without even placing the individual facts and material pertaining to the case of the convict, before the Governor.
What does Article 433-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure states?
According to Article 433-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure where a sentence of imprisonment for life is imposed on conviction of a person for an offence for which death is one of the punishments provided by law, or where a sentence of death imposed on a person has been commuted under section 433 into one of imprisonment for life, such person shall not be released from prison unless he had served at least fourteen years of imprisonment.
Analysis
Now, in Maru Ram v. Union of India the constitution bench of the Supreme Court considered the validity of Section 433-A of the Code. The court affirmed the supremacy of Section 433-A over Remission rules and short-sentencing statutes made by the various States.
In Swaran Singh vs. State of U.P. and others , the order passed by the Governor under Article 161 of the Constitution granting remission to the person convicted of an offence of murder, even before the convict had completed two years’ of actual sentence, was set aside by a Bench of three Judges of the Supreme Court.
In present case, no individual facts or material pertaining to any of the cases were placed before the Governor and that the benefit in each of the cases was conferred by the Executive itself in terms of the Policy. The Governor, thus, did not have the occasion to look into the issues such as severity of the crime or the manner in which the crime was committed or the impact of the crime on the Society or how the matter was seen and considered by the concerned courts while holding or upholding that the concerned convicts were found guilty of the offences in question.
The decision of the Court
The Court observed that decision rendered since Maru Ram v. Union of India do show that the relevant material must be placed before the Governor in order to enable him to exercise the power under Article 161 of the Constitution and failure on that count could result in quashing of the concerned orders of remission issued under Article 161 of the Constitution.
The Court placed the matter before a larger bench of the Supreme Court. The Registry was directed to place the matter before the Hon’ble the Chief Justice for constituting a Bench of appropriate strength to consider the issues raised in the present matter.
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