Public perception seems to sway remission call: Delhi high court to Mattoo convict | India News
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court, while examining the decision of the Sentence Review Board to deny premature release Santosh Kumar SinghIn 1996, Priyadarshini Mattu, who spent her life in the rape and murder case, observed that the board’s decisions seemed to be influenced by public perception.Justice Anup J Bhambani said on Thursday that there was no doubt that the crime was heinous and the family of the deceased had suffered a “permanent loss”, adding that “SRB seems to be proceeding on public perception”.“You are a very unpopular person… Your name does not sound good so I (SRB) am rejecting it,” observed the judge, detecting a trend in the high court in many petitions arising out of the board’s rejection of premature release. “There is such a thing as reformation… 30 years in custody,” the court added.It listed Singh’s petition on April 20 along with other similar petitions on the same issue. “You will be treated objectively. You will be treated according to what I have distilled,” the court told Singh’s lawyer.The High Court ordered Doshi Singh’s surrender last month after the victim’s brother Hemant Mattu strongly opposed his plea seeking premature release. The court then indicated that it would consider Singh’s pardon plea only once he surrenders, completing his parole.In July last year, a different High Court bench, observing that Singh had shown signs of reformation, set aside the board’s decision to reject his pardon plea and asked for a fresh decision. It, too, faulted the board for relying only on the gravity, cruelty and depravity of the crime and the objections raised by the Delhi Police and the CBI.During Thursday’s hearing, senior advocate Mohit Mathur sought preliminary hearing of the waiver plea and claimed that Singh had already spent 31 years in custody. He said despite the High Court’s complete decision last year, the board rejected his case again on the same grounds.Justice Bhambani noted that there were “bad cases”, in which one convict spent 41 years in custody as the board was “just rejecting things” due to the heinousness of the crime despite recommendations to the contrary.In his main petition, Singh challenged the board’s November 27, 2025 decision, rejecting his case for premature release after the High Court sent the matter back to the board last year.Even as Hemant Mattu’s lawyer opposed the plea to advance the hearing date, arguing that the accused had committed a serious crime, the High Court responded that Singh was awarded the same sentence.“There is something called reformation, there is something called 30 years in custody. There is such thing as transfer to open jail,” the court said.“I understand your feelings. What he did was unacceptable and the system punished him. He got life. The crime was heinous. What do we do? Put a man in jail like this?” Justice Bhambani was surprised and highlighted that even Sushil Kumar, a convict in the 1995 Tandoor murder case, was released after serving 23 years in prison.Singh’s counsel gave the example of his conviction in the 1999 murder case of Jessica Lal, who was later acquitted.Mattu, 25, was raped and murdered in January 1996. Singh, a law student at Delhi University, was acquitted in the case on December 3, 1999 by a trial court, but the Delhi High Court reversed the decision on October 27, 2006, convicting him of rape and murder and sentencing him to death.Singh, the son of a former IPS officer, challenged his conviction and death sentence awarded by the High Court. In October 2010, the Supreme Court upheld Singh’s conviction but commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.
