Good conduct pays: 45 life-sentence convicts walk free after serving 10 years

Forty-five convicts serving life sentences, two of them women, were released prematurely on Thursday on the basis of good conduct, a top official said.

Forty-four of them were lodged in the Central Prison at Parappana Agrahara while one prisoner was housed in the open-air prison at Devanahalli. Forty-three were murder convicts while two had been jailed for kidnap.

The murder convicts were guilty of what are called spur-of-the-moment killings over family and property issues, the official said on the condition of anonymity.

“These prisoners were truly remorseful for what they had done,” he said.

While the duration of a standard life sentence is 20 years, the convicts were released as they were deemed to have served 14 years. Technically, all the 43 convicts had served only 10 years but the government reduced four years from their sentence under Section 432 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

The premature release of a prisoner is a tedious process. A committee consisting of the prison department chief (DGP), the sessions judge, the district surgeon and the police commissioner evaluates a list of convicts eligible for premature release on the basis of good conduct.

It then submits a request to the state government, which carries out another round of evaluation before sending the list to the governor’s office. At the last step, the governor’s office issues an order of premature release.

The committee had submitted a list of 51 prisoners but six names were rejected because they were involved in crimes against women and children. In all, 96 convicts were released across Karnataka, the official added. There were no gangsters, drug peddlers or anti-social elements.