The Calcutta High Court in the case Mahuya Chakraborty Vs. The State of West Bengal and others observed and has held that the right of a person under Article 21 of the Constitution of India to live a life of dignity cannot be deprived which being merely because he was convicted.
The bench headed by single judge Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharya in the case observed and has directed the Sentence Review Board, SSRB to reconsider the plea for premature release of the convict filed by his wife i.e., the petitioner.
The court held that the right of the petitioner under Article 21 of the Constitution of India to live a life of dignity cannot be deprived merely because the petitioner was convicted. Thus, the life behind the bars has already been undergone by the petitioner for a considerable period and there cannot be any double punishment on the petitioner by refusing the petitioner an opportunity to reintegrate in mainstream society even if the petitioner is otherwise being eligible.
In the present case, the petitioner had challenged the order of SSRB wherein it rejected the petition moved by her for the early release of her husband who had been convicted and handed a life sentence.
The petitioner in the plea argued that the SSRB had not been properly constituted and that the grounds cited for the rejection of her prayer was not in consonance with the stance taken by the Apex Court and other High Courts with regards to the remission.
It was also submitted before the court that the Apex Court had directed the consideration of holistic grounds for the rehabilitation of convicts, which leads to the release and had held that the SSRB shall not entirely rely on the view of the presiding judge or the police.
The counsel appearing for the State submitted before the court that although a gist of reasons for rejecting the plea moved by her for her husband’s remissions were supplied to her, the counsel did not have any instructions.
The court in the case noted that the grounds of rejection, which were annexed to the writ petition appeared to be comprehensive, and that the husband of the petitioner had been in custody for more than 20 years.
Further, it has been held by the said court that it is well-settled that the aim of punishment in modern criminal jurisprudence is reformative and not retributive.
The court observed that the Apex Court had passed various considerations which may be taken into account, apart from the nature of the crime and the propensity of re-occurrence, none of which had been considered by the SSRB in the said case.
It has also been held by the court that even the police report which had been cited for denying the petitioner’s plea for remission was ‘cryptic’ since the nature of the petitioner’s crime which had occurred long back was the primary consideration.
The court noted that there needed to be solid reasons to support such opposition, while the prayer for early release had been opposed by the family of the victims.
The court while considering the facts and circumstances of the case stated that the petitioner cannot be subjected to further punishment after having undergone 20 years of imprisonment already, thus, the court noted that the SSRB had not been properly constituted and thus directed that the petitioner’s plea be reconsidered within one month by taking into account the yardsticks indicated in the order.