A recent Delhi High Court ruling ordered the release of two life-term convicts, quoting lines on life imprisonment from Anton Chekhov’s famous short story, The Bet.
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambani quoted Chekhov’s work as saying, “Capital punishment kills a man at once, but lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly. Which executioner is the more humane, he who kills you in a few minutes or he who drags the life out of you in the course of many years?” The ruling came in a case where two men were convicted and imprisoned for life in rape cases of 1990s.
The August 11 order added, “Sustained good conduct in custody cannot be discounted in the absence of contemporary evidence to the contrary, and any assessment of propensity to re‑offend must be based on antecedents and conduct in jail, rather than on baseless apprehensions of victims or witnesses or generic references to age.”
One of the convicts had committed the crime in 1992 and was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. According to this plea, he had undergone over 31 years of imprisonment, excluding the period of remission, as on January 3, 2026. If including remission his custody would extend beyond 40 years, he added.
The other convict was punished for the crime in 1997 and has been serving life imprisonment. His plea argued that as on October 6, 2025, he had spent 15 years behind bars and the duration excluded the period of remission. If included, his term would exceed 19 years.
The judgment noted that while deciding a plea for early release, the focus must be on “post‑conviction conduct, propensity to re‑offend, purpose and usefulness of continued confinement, and the socio‑economic condition of the convict’s family.”
The high court was of the view that “the gravity of the original offence and the length of the sentence imposed are static, historical facts which, by themselves, are not relevant considerations while deciding a plea for early release, and that to treat them as dispositive of the plea for early release would mean that no life convict would ever qualify for early release.”
The ruling observed that the SRB’s fear that the convicts would “likely” commit a crime again was not supported by any “psychological” or “behavioural” assessment or objective material. Accordingly, calling the SRB’s decision “arbitrary” and in violation of Article 21, the high court set aside the orders that had rejected the plea of the convicts and directed that they must be released from custody.
Senior advocate Rebecca John who was appointed as amicus curiae by the high court to assist in case, submitted that the legal guidelines set-out a list of factors that were to considered for a case of early release, these factors included “whether the convict has lost the propensity to commit crime in light of his overall conduct in prison, the possibility of his rehabilitation as a useful member of society, and the socio-economic condition of the convict’s family.”
Advocate Sowjhanya Shankaran appearing for the convict R argued that the order passed by the SRB incorrectly relied on general expressions like “desperation crime,” “shakes the confidence of the society,” and “not be in the interest of the society at large,” without following the structured criteria of the law and the prior directions passed by the high court.
Advocate Sarthak Maggon, appearing for Tasleem, argued that the reasons given for rejecting the plea, like the nature, gravity, heinousness, and perversity of the offence, etc., could not determine the post-release conduct of the convict.
Additional Standing Counsels Sanjeev Bhandari and Amol Sinha appearing for the state argued that while rejecting the pleas for early release, the SRB had considered all relevant factors and that no “straight-jacket formula” can be applied either by the SRB or by this court while considering cases for early release since each case is required to be evaluated on its own facts.
According to the counsel, the acts committed by the convicts were “barbaric” and “reflect complete disregard for human dignity and societal norms, and crimes of such nature shock the collective conscience of the society and create a deep sense of fear among citizens.” The counsel also contended that granting remission to the convicts only because they were imprisoned for a long time would hurt the society at large.
