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Rajo @ Rajwa @ Rajendra Mandal vs. The State of Bihar & Ors.

Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2023 INSC 771Decided 25 Aug 2023
Writ Petition (Criminal) No. 252 of 2023
S. Ravindra Bhat · Prashant Kumar Mishra

Background

The petitioner, convicted in 2001 for the murder of two police "dafadars" and a chowkidar during a village fair, had by 2023 spent over 24 years in actual custody (and over 28 years counting earned remission), well beyond the mandatory minimum. His applications for premature release were rejected twice by Bihar's Remission Board, in 2021 and 2023, primarily because the Presiding Judge of the trial court gave adverse opinions, even though the Probation Officer and (in the first round) the Superintendent of Police had recommended his release.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that while the Presiding Judge's opinion under Section 432(2) CrPC is a mandatory and important input, it cannot be treated as automatically decisive, especially when it is a stale, mechanical repetition of facts about the crime itself rather than an assessment of the convict's post-conviction reform, since the judge giving the opinion years later usually never personally observed the convict. The Remission Board must take a holistic view of all reports (police, probation officer, jail conduct), factor in the convict's age, health, family circumstances, earned remissions, and rehabilitative potential (per the Laxman Naskar factors), and should be alert to possible institutional bias in police reports, particularly where the victims were police personnel. The Court also noted that the pre-2002 remission policy (applicable at the time of this conviction) did not carry the "ineligibility" bar under Rule 529(iv)(b) that the Board had wrongly relied on in 2023. It directed the Presiding Judge to give a fresh, reasoned opinion within one month, and the Remission Board to reconsider the application within three months.

Lesson Learnt

A long-term prisoner's post-conviction reform and conduct in jail must be given real weight in remission decisions: the executive cannot simply defer to a judge's opinion that only reflects the original crime, since doing so would defeat the reformative purpose of imprisonment and the constitutional promise of remission for genuine rehabilitation.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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