Release prisoners who have completed sentence: SC

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Aug 12, 2025: Convicts who have completed prison terms must be released immediately, the Supreme Court said in a big ruling Tuesday. A bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice KV Vishwanathan directed the Home Secretaries of all states and union territories to check their prisons and comply with the order.

The Supreme Court underlined an order it passed last month, when it ruled on a release plea by Sukhdev Yadav, alias Pehalwan, a convict in the murder of Delhi businessman Nitish Katara in 2002.

Pehalwan had been sentenced to a fixed-term life sentence of 20 years.

That sentence finished on March 9 and he filed a plea seeking release. However, the Sentence Review Board cited his conduct during those 20 years and turned down his remission request.

Pehalwan then approached the Supreme Court, which ordered his release on July 29.

Clarifying a point of law, the Supreme Court said a convict given a fixed-term life sentence (or any other, apart from a full life term) does not need an order to be freed after completing that sentence.

A remission order from the Sentence Review Board is only required for convicts who have been sentenced to spend the entirety of their remaining lives in prison, the court said.

"What kind of behaviour is this? If this attitude continues, every convict will die in jail..."

In the July hearing Additional Solicitor General Archana Pathak Dave, appearing for the Delhi government, argued that Pehalwan could not be automatically released after 20 years.

She reasoned that a 20-year life term without remission - the sentence handed to Pehalwan - only meant the convict could not appeal for a lesser punishment within those 20 years.

A ’life term’ means spending the rest of his natural life in jail, she reasoned.

But senior advocate Siddharth Mridul, appearing for Pehalwan, pointed out the prison term - per the sentencing order - finished March 9 and there could be no justification for not releasing him.

He said the Delhi government’s interpretation of the sentencing order was flawed.

The court earlier granted Pehalwan three months’ furlough - a form of temporary release, and not a suspension or lessening of the sentence - noting he had served 20 uninterrupted years.

That was after the Delhi High Court’s November 2024 order dismissing a furlough request.

In October 2016 the Supreme Court sentenced Pehalwan to a 20-year life term.

The court also gave two other convicts - Vikas Yadav and his cousin Vishal - sentences of 25 years, without remission, for their role in the kidnapping and killing of Nitish Katara.

Katara was abducted from a marriage party on the night of February 16, 2002, and then murdered over an alleged affair with Vikas Yadav’s sister, Bharti Yadav.

Bharti is the daughter of former Rajya Sabha MP DP Yadav from Uttar Pradesh.