The Supreme Court has asked the Bihar government to produce original records in connection with the early release of gangster-politician Anand Mohan, who was sentenced to life term in the 1994 murder of G. Krishnaiah, the then district magistrate of Gopalganj.
A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and J.B. Pardiwala on Friday issued the direction to the Bihar government’s counsel to produce the original records related to the remission granted to Mohan for the perusal of the court.
The top court has scheduled the matter for further hearing in August.
On May 8, the Supreme Court had issued notice on a plea of the widow of IAS officer G. Krishnaiah, who was lynched in 1994 by a mob led by Singh, against Anand Mohan’s premature release from prison.
The plea filed by Umadevi Krishnaiah said: “The sentence of imprisonment for life given to a convict as a substitute for death sentence must be viewed differently and segregated from the ordinary life imprisonment given as the sentence of first choice. Life imprisonment, when awarded as a substitute for death penalty, has to be carried out strictly as directed by the court and would be beyond application of remission.”
“Imprisonment for life means full natural course of life and cannot be mechanically interpreted to be 14 years. It means that imprisonment for life lasts until the last breath,” it said.
Anand Mohan was released from the Saharsa jail following an amendment in Bihar’s prison rules.
The plea said Mohan is a politically influential person and has committed the murder of G. Krishnaiah, a serving IAS Officer, while himself being an MLA. He enjoys political support and has several criminal cases pending against him.
The plea argued that Rule 481(1)(c) of Bihar Prison Manual, 2012 provides that convicts whose death sentence has been commuted to life sentence will be eligible for consideration of remission only after completion of 20 years of sentence.
In 1994, Krishnaiah, then District Magistrate of Gopalganj, who hailed from Telangana, was beaten to death by a mob when his vehicle tried to overtake the funeral procession of gangster Chhotan Shukla. The mob was instigated by Anand Mohan.
(With IANS inputs)
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