This story is from September 21, 2023

6. How much time is enough to seek remission

| Sep 22, 2023, 00:33 IST

What

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Pitching for reformative approach to justice and change of the government's mindset to allow remission plea of convicts, the Supreme Court on Thursday said a person convicted of heinous offence should not be condemned to die in jail and should be released after spending a long period behind bars if his conduct has been good.
A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Dipankar Datta came to the rescue of a convict who spent 26 years in jail for killing a woman. His remission pleas were repeatedly rejected by the Kerala government over the years. The bench directed the release of the 65-year-old convict.

Morality vs Rationality

Justice Bhat, who penned the verdict, said that not granting relief to such convicts is a reflection of the unforgiving nature of society which should change.
“Regardless of the morality of continued punishment, one may question its rationality. The question is, what is achieved by continuing to punish a person who recognises the wrongness of what they’ve done, no longer identifies with it, and bears little resemblance to the person he was years earlier," the bench said.

Significance

In a verdict passed last month, the top court had held that a government should not be guided only by the severity of offence or opinion of the trial court or police for deciding remission plea of a convict.
While deciding a plea filed by a convict who spent 24 years in jail in a triple murder case and whose remission plea was rejected on the ground of negative opinion from trial judge, the court said the decision on remission should not be taken on the basis of same judicial record, adding that the remission policy should be guided by "reformative" rather than "retributive" concept of justice.
This verdict was cited by one of the convicts on Wednesday in hearing of the matter concerning the remission of 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case in which a Supreme Court bench of Justices Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan had asked whether convicts have a fundamental right to seek remission.

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