Citing Franz Kafka, Delhi High Court Orders Premature Release Of Former President's Bodyguard; Slams SRB's 'Mechanical' Denials

Citing writer Franz Kafka, the Delhi High Court has ordered premature release of a former President's Bodyguard, who is serving life sentence for the 2003 robbery and gang rape of a young woman.Justice Neena Bansal Krishna held that the authorities, including the Sentence Review Board (SRB) acted arbitrarily in repeatedly denying him premature release despite over two decades of incident‑free custody and consistent positive reform reports.“Much like Gregor Samsa, the Petitioner, has been trapped by the State in the frozen image of his past criminality - viewed perpetually as the gigantic insect of 2003, rather than the reformed individual of 2025,” the Court said. “The SRB, by mechanically reiterating the heinousness of the original offence, as a constant and permanent bar to release, has refused to acknowledge that the Petitioner has successfully undergone a reverse metamorphosis: shedding the propensity for crime and earning his place back in humanity, through 25 years of exemplary conduct and discipline,” it added. The Court said that the journey of Harpreet Singh, from a being a public servant “who fell into crime" to a prisoner who earned 21 years of clean conduct and multiple commendations - demonstrates that the reformative objective of his sentence has been fulfilled.“While Kafka‟s protagonist was ultimately destroyed by the alienation of those who could not see past his shell, the Constitution of India, anchored in the Reformative Theory, forbids the State from condemning a prisoner to such eternal alienation, when the objective of correction has been achieved,” the judge said. Justice Krishna allowed Singh's plea seeking premature release and quashed the SRB minutes dated February 23, 2024 and the LG's approval order passed on October 15, 2024, and directed that he be “released from custody forthwith.”Singh, who was then serving as a Guard in Rashtrapati Bhavan, was convicted by the trial court in August 2009 for gangraping and robbing a young woman at Buddha Jayanti Park in New Delhi. He was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for life with a fine of Rs 5,000, and his appeal was dismissed on August 23, 2012.As per documents placed on record, Singh had undergone about 21 years of actual imprisonment and a total of 25 years, 7 months and 2 days including remission as of November 23, 2024. Citing a couplet by Urdu poet Mir Hasan, Justice Krishna said that no amount of remorse and reformation over the long period undergone by Singh has proven to be of any worth, as his remission was consistently rejected twelve times, since 2016. The Court said that Singh's journey through the Sentence Review process is a testament to what may be aptly described as a “mechanical and cyclostyled” administrative approach. “Despite completing 25 years of incarceration, which is more than the mandatory period for consideration for remission and maintaining an exemplary record within the prison walls, Petitioner‟s plea for premature release has been rejected by the SRB on twelve occasions, commencing from 06.01.2016 till 23.02.2024,” it said. The judge concluded that the Rejection Orders were “pithily drafted, cursorily articulated proforma paragraphs” taking a myopic view of only the gravity of offence, overlooking all other relevant considerations. Also, the reasoning process devolved into a “copy-paste” exercise, with no other reason for rejection, the Court said.Justice Krishna observed that insisting on continued punishment without considering the “transformation of a prisoner,” undermines the very rationality of the criminal justice system.The Court said that Singh's crime, while shocking the conscience of the society, did not belong to the category of mass terrorist acts or systemic societal disruptions that might justify a permanent exclusion from even the hope of redemption. Noting that during his incarceration, Singh earned multiple Certificates of recognition for his “good conduct, hard work, and excellent services”, the Court said:“Continued incarceration after 25 years of documented reform, serves no preventive purpose; instead turns the punishment into a purely retributive exercise - what the Supreme Court terms “savage justice” - which crushes the life force of the individual without further benefit to society.”“In its 12 rejections based on the same static ground i.e. the gravity of the original offence committed in 2003, the SRB has demonstrated a bureaucratic haze that is unlikely to be cured by a 13th Application. As this Court has repeatedly emphasized, the gravity of an offence is a static, historical fact - it will never change, no matter how many decades pass. To allow the heinousness of a past act to act as a permanent bar to remission is to transform a life sentence into a retributive death by incarceration, rendering the State‟s reformative machinery entirely redundant,” it added. Counsel for Petitioner: Mr. Sumer Singh Boparai, Mr. Sirhaan Seth, Mr. Surya Pratap Singh, Mr. Abhilash Kumar Pathak...

Citing Franz Kafka, Delhi High Court Orders Premature Release Of Former President's Bodyguard; Slams SRB's 'Mechanical' Denials

Nupur Thapliyal

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