Om Parkash vs State of Haryana and others

Sat Pal, J. (Oral)

In this case, the petitioner was arrested on 4th April, 1981. In the case FIR No. 42, dated 3rd March, 1981, registered under sections 395/396/397/412 Indian Penal Code, at Police Station G.R.P. Rewari, the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Gurgaon, by this order, dated 24th October, 1981, sentenced the petitioner to imprisonment for life under Sections 395 and 396, Indian Penal Code and to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 7 years under Section 412, Indian Penal Code. It was stated in the judgment that all the sentences shall run concurrently.

The present petition has been filed by the petitioner under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India, and under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (in short, the Code) and in this petition it has been stated that the petitioner is entitled to be released prematurely in terms of the instructions, dated 4th February, 1993, framed by the Government of Haryana as he has already undergone the minimum actual sentence of 14 years and has also undergone the total period of 20 years.

Notice of this petition was issued to the Advocate General, Haryana and written statement on behalf of the State of Haryana has been filed. In para 3 of the written statement, it has been stated that the actual sentence undergone by the petitioner comes to 14 years 12 months and 26 days and after excluding the parole period availed of by the petitioner (which comes to 7 months 5 days) the actual sentence undergone comes to 13 years 7 months and 21 days. It has further been stated that since the petitioner has not undergone the actual period of 14 years after deducting the period of parole, he is not entitled to be released.

Mr. Talwar, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner, submits that in terms of the law laid down by this Court in various judgments including the one in the case, Faqir Singh v. State of Punjab, 1988(1) RecentCR 558 , the period of parole cannot be excluded for calculating the actual period of sentence undergone.

Mr. Dewan, learned AAG Haryana, however, has drawn my attention to subsection (3) of Section 3 of the Haryana Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Act and submitted that the parole period availed of by the petitioner has to be excluded to calculate the actual sentence undergone by the petitioner.

I have given my thoughtful consideration to the submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties and have perused the record.

The question raised in this case came up for consideration before a learned Single Judge of this Court in the case of Faqir Singh (supra), and in this case, the learned Single Judge observed as under :

"5. I am, therefore, of the view that the time spent on parole by a prisoner can legitimately be included in the period of imprisonment undergone by him and as such it has to be so considered while deciding his premature release case. It is, however, clarified that in view of section 3(3) of the Punjab Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Act, the period spent by the petitioner on parole shall not be counted towards the total period of sentence of imprisonment. Taking this view the respondent State of Punjab is directed to consider the premature release case of the petitioner within three months from today provided the petitioner has undergone actual imprisonment of 81/2 years inclusive of the time spent on parole and total of 14 years imprisonment including remissions but excluding the period of parole..."

Thus, in this judgment, it was held that the time spent on parole by a prisoner can be included in the period of imprisonment undergone by him while calculating actual sentence undergone but the said period cannot be including while calculating the total period of imprisonment undergone. This view has been consistently followed by this Court including in the decision dated 27th July. 1995 in Cr. Misc. No. 6138M of 1995 (Partap v. State of Haryana and others). It may be pointed out here that in terms of instructions of the Government, the petitioner has already undergone a total period of imprisonment of 20 years.

For the reasons, recorded herein above, I direct the respondents to consider the case of the petitioner in the light of the judgment by this Court in the case of Faqir Singh (supra) and pass appropriate orders within two months from today.

With this order, petition stands disposed of.