The Delhi High Court bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar on Wednesday (May 9) issued notice, saying that the Delhi Government and the Sentence Reviewing Board of Delhi, to file status report within four weeks on meetings of the Board which should sit at least once every quarter.

The court was reaction to an appeal by Sumeet Verma, who has sought direction to hold the meeting of the Board of Delhi. The petitioner has said that the board has not been sitting as it should.

The case of the petitioner is briefly that the Delhi Sentence Reviewing Board (SRB) constituted by an order of the home department in 2004, is required to meet once every quarter and can meet more frequently if it seems necessary.

The SRB has to exercise its direction to release a convict who has undergone 14 years of actual imprisonment without remission at an appropriate time. Various considerations for the exercise of discretion are circumstances of committing crime, family, socio-economic condition, loss of potential to commit crime etc. are to be considered.

Rule 3.1 of SRB states that the total period of imprisonment should not ordinarily exceed 20 years for heinous crimes. The board is required to meet at least 4 times a year but it meets a maximum of 2 or 3 times only. It has never met 4 times a year.

The latest meeting scheduled for April 24, 2018 (which was supposed to be held latest by March 14, 2018) has also been postponed indefinitely. This is causing grave inconvenience as even elderly people are waiting for review of their sentences. A lot of these people have already undergone a sentence beyond the outer limit of 20 or 25 years as prescribed by the SRB Rules.

— India Legal Bureau