A meeting of the State Sentence Revision Council, chaired by Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, took place at the Chief Minister’s residential office in Ranchi. During this meeting, a decision was made to release 51 inmates serving life sentences in various districts of the state. In addition to the decision on releases, the council reviewed 37 new cases related to release, as well as the cases of 66 inmates that were rejected in previous meetings.
Attendees of the meeting included the Additional Chief Secretary to the Chief Minister, Avinash Kumar, the Principal Secretary of the Home, Jail, and Disaster Management Department, Vandana Dadel, DGP Anurag Gupta, Principal Secretary-cum-Legal Advisor to the Law (Justice) Department Neeraj Kumar Srivastava, Inspector General of Prisons and Correctional Services Sudarshan Prasad Mandal, Judicial Commissioner Anil Kumar Mishra, and the Principal Probation Officer, among other officials.
After the recommendation of the State Sentence Revision Council, Chief Minister Hemant Soren discussed in detail with officials the proposal to release a total of 103 inmates serving life sentences in various jails of the state. Each inmate’s file was carefully considered. The Chief Minister obtained information about each inmate before making a decision. After considering the age, family, social, and educational backgrounds of the recommended inmates, the Chief Minister approved the release of 51 inmates.
The Chief Minister directed officials to connect the released inmates with social security schemes. Some cases involved inmates with health issues and mental health concerns. Medical care will be provided to such inmates so that they can live their lives smoothly. The release of such inmates will be considered based on the reports provided by the doctors after the medical treatment.
During the review at the meeting, those inmates who have served 14 years or more in the state’s jails, are of advanced age, and have good conduct were also being released. Instructions were given to the officials to encourage the released inmates to start a better social life.
Following the agreement in the Jharkhand State Sentence Revision Council meeting, 619 inmates have been released from 2019 to date. Physical verification of 558 inmates has been done by the department. Physical verification of 61 inmates is yet to be done. The officials also informed the Chief Minister that out of the 619 released since 2019, 470 inmates have been connected with government-run schemes.
These include benefits from old-age pension, widow pension, ration cards, Ayushman cards, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, and MNREGA e-Shram cards. Those released inmates who have not received the benefits of government schemes are being connected with the relevant schemes, and they will soon be benefited from the social security schemes run by the government.
