The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the Bihar government’s decision to grant remission to former Member of Parliament Anand Mohan in the 1994 murder of district magistrate G Krishnaiah observing that “every dice was loaded in his favour” to procure release.
Reserving orders on a petition filed by the deceased officer’s wife Umadevi that questioned Mohan’s release, a bench of justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu said that the brazen act of the convict in shooting dead an already injured Krishnaiah was a “rarest of rare” crime. It said that rule of law demands that an amendment to the remission rules should not be made to facilitate an individual.
As per the 2002 Bihar Prison Manual rules governing remission, a convict punished for murder of a public servant is not eligible for premature release. The petition alleged that the state passed a crucial amendment on April 10, 2023 removing this “ineligibility” paving way for Mohan’s release on April 24 that year.
Hearing the state government, the State Remission Board and Mohan besides the petitioner, the bench said, “You do not bring about an amendment to facilitate any individual. Fourteen days after the amendment, he was released. There is something called rule of law in this country.”
The petition was argued by senior advocate Siddharth Luthra along with advocate Tanya Shree who pointed out how the state indulged in “selective disclosure” while placing the case for Mohan’s premature release before the State Remission Board. No details of his criminal antecedents, parole history were produced at the time of consideration and even his age was shown to be 74 even as the affidavit filed by him in the top court in 2023 declared his age to be 67.
The bench said, “To procure his release, every dice was loaded in his favour. Before the remission board, his age is shown as 74 years so that the Board takes a lenient view. The state’s checklist for remission does not have the list of offences committed inside jail, the days he has been out on parole. Are these not relevant considerations before deciding remission?”
Mohan’s lawyer senior advocate Dinesh Dwivedi stated that under the rules, he was eligible for remission on completion of 14 years of incarceration and had written books while in jail. He referred to his background of being the grandson of a freedom fighter to which the bench said, “They would be turning in their graves if they find out your conduct.”
While the petitioner produced a list of 32 criminal cases against Mohan and two cases registered for offences committed inside jail, Dwivedi said that in most cases he has been acquitted.
Even the state government represented by senior advocate Ranjit Kumar denied the allegation that the state deliberately acted to favour Mohan. “Undoubtedly, he had undergone 22 years sentence with remission, he is now in his 70s and it has been three years since the order of his release,” Kumar said defending the former MP’s release.
The court said, “Take the facts of this case. This officer (Krishnaiah) would have survived had this man (Mohan) not incited the people. He was lying in an injured state under a car which turned turtle. He (Mohan) who is then a MLA comes with his entourage and exhorts everybody to finish him off and the man is shot. We wonder what else can be the rarest of rare case. It would be so in any other state. We do not know about Bihar?”
Luthra told the court that the remission in the state was governed by the 2002 policy under which life convicts were to be considered for premature release only on completion of 20 years imprisonment. The April 10 notification was “ex-facie illegal” and contrary to judgments of the Supreme Court clearly laying down that the remission policy prevailing at the time of conviction will govern the remission granted to life convicts.
Since Mohan was initially awarded death sentence in this case, later commuted to life term by the Patna high court, Luthra said under Rule 481(i)(c) of Bihar Prison Manual 2012, a convict whose death sentence has been converted to life is ineligible for premature release.
Further, he referred to a Supreme Court judgment in Laxman Naskar case (2000) highlighting the need to consider past criminal antecedents, social status and the potentiality of the accused to commit crime in future as some of the guiding principles for a convict’s early release.
Luthra pointed out that the column on “pending cases” in the checklist mentions “no cases” even when Mohan declared on an affidavit submitted before the Election Commission in 2004 of having 32 cases pending against him across Bihar.
In addition, he faced two cases of attacking another inmate with lathi in 2014 and confiscation of four mobile phones from prison involving him in 2021 that finds no mention in the checklist. This assumes significance as the petitioner pointed out that the Prison Manual also contains a provision by which remission can be cancelled for bad conduct in jail.
The State Remission Board too made submissions by adopting arguments made by the state. Irked by this stand, the bench said, “How can you say you are adopting the arguments of the state? You are meant to be a neutral authority. Is it not your duty to find out if there was any other pending case?” The Board said there was no superior authority or officer who could point out any omissions made by the state.
Krishnaiah, who was the then Gopalganj district magistrate was killed in December 1994. He was sentenced to death by a trial court in 2007. HIs sentence was commuted to life by the Patna high court in 2008, a decision which the Supreme Court upheld in July 2012.
