Delhi High court directed the Delhi Govt to convene quarterly Sentence Review Board (SRB) Meetings in a plea seeking compliance of rules on it.

Advocate and Activist Amit Sahni has stated in his petition that between October 2018 and October 2019, the SRB meeting was convened only once – on 19.07.2019 – in contravention of the order dated 16.07.2004 and Rule 1249 of the Delhi Prison Rules which clearly mandates that meetings must happen every 3 months.

A bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar, while terming the issue raised in the Petition is serious the Court orally reacted that the Respondents should take it seriously as it is absolutely necessary to comply with the rule/order/notifications.

The purpose of SRB meeting is to review the sentence imposed on the convicts and consider cases for premature release. Court thus directed the respondents to implement the rules necessarily binding upon them consequent to a previous Supreme Court order as also the Delhi Prison Rules 2018.

— India Legal Bureau