IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CR WJC No 539 of 2011 Yugesh Kumar @ Jugesh Kumar @ Yugesh Prasad Swarnkar Versus The State Of Bihar & Ors *** For the petitioner : Mr Deepak Kumar Sinha, Advocate For the S t a t e : M/s M Nasrul Huda Khan, SC 18 & Md Irshad, AC to SC 18 *** 5 28.07.2011 The present application has been filed by the petitioner seeking release from judicial custody in view of the fact that he has already served out his sentence. Petitioner was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by judgment and order dated 29th February, 2000. It is not denied that in fact by now he has completed almost 16 years in prison physically and, together with remission, he has completed 20 years. Pursuant to our order dated 14.07.2011, a counter affidavit has been filed in which in paragraph-6, it is admitted that the earlier remission could not be considered as on 25.03.2010, petitioner had completed only 18 years, 8 months and 13 days and, as such, less than 20 years. Accepting the submission as made in the counter affidavit, as of date, there cannot be any dispute that petitioner has completed 20 years in jail with remission. We are surprised that even though this statistics was available to the respondents which entitled the release of the petitioner, they are sleeping over the matter and waiting for this Court or “someone” to wake them up. It is unfortunate. Here, we may refer to the decision of the State 2 Government in these regards. It appears earlier the decision of the State Government was, as is evident by Circular dated 21.01.1984 that wherever a person, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment, has completed 14 years of imprisonment physically and with remission 20 years of imprisonment, he would be released by the jail authorities themselves. This was materially changed by Circular dated 02nd July, 2007 by the State Government. Though the period of incarceration was maintained earlier, it was now provided that in cases, which were to be considered for release, six months prior to completion of 20 years of incarceration, the jail authorities would send the matter to the State Remission Board for consideration and orders. From this, it is evident that the obligation has been cast on the jail authorities to have a continuous review process and, well before time, send the matter to the State Remission Board. We regret to note that this rarely happens because unless someone moves somebody, the jail authorities do not move. In absence of any incentive, no action is taken and people have to repeatedly come to this Court to get their cases referred to the Remission Board for consideration. As noted above, on the pleadings as made in the counter affidavit itself, State is fully aware of the right of the petitioner to get remission and consequently be released but jail authorities are waiting to be woken up and be told of their duties. They do not prefer to act on their own. This is a very sorry state of affairs. However, in the facts noted above, we direct the jail 3 Superintendent, Central Jail, Gaya to immediately refer the case of the petitioner, if not already referred, to the State Remission Board for consideration and we direct that such reference, if not already made, would be done within one week from today. The Remission Board would then meet and consider the same and pass appropriate orders within 15 days of the receipt of the recommendation. It would be open to the State authorities to take such action as they may deem fit and proper against the jail authorities for sleeping over the matter only to be woken up after this Court’s direction. They are dealing with human rights and cannot sleep in the manner in which they have done. With these observations and directions, this application is, accordingly, disposed of. Let a copy of this order be sent to the Inspector General of Prison for necessary action. M.E.H./ (Navaniti Prasad Singh) (Ashwani Kumar Singh)