The Delhi High Court has questioned the Sentence Review Board (SRB) over a “mechanical” approach in handling sensitive cases involving the premature release of long-term prisoners.
The petitioner, Vikram Yadav, convicted in a 2001 case of abduction and murder, had sought from the SRB premature release under a Delhi government policy after completing more than 18 years of imprisonment. However, the SRB had repeatedly denied his request, citing the “gravity of the crime” and “parole violations”.
The court on June 11, while hearing the petition by Yadav, who has now spent over 21 years in prison, noted that the operative portions of the SRB’s minutes of meeting dated June 30, 2023, were virtually a “copy-paste” of earlier decisions taken on August 6, 2020, December 11, 2020, June 25, 2021, and October 21, 2021.
“The impugned decision of denial of premature release to the petitioner suffers from vices of non-application of mind and completely mechanical approach to such a sensitive issue,” the court remarked.
The court said that though the crime committed by the petitioner — abduction for ransom and murder — is indeed “gruesome and needs to be dealt with sternly”, it cannot be ignored that “the said crime took place way back in the year 2001”.
Published – June 15, 2025 01:25 am IST