PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has dismissed the petitions filed by four accused in the sensational August 2006 Mandar Surlakar murder case seeking their release from jail.
Citing the recommendation of the State Sentence Review Board, the four accused Rohan Dhungat, Nafiyaz Sheikh, Shankar Tiwari and Jovito Ryan Pinto had pleaded for their release claiming that they had completed 14 years of a life sentence. However, the Division bench comprising Justice Mahesh Sonak and Justice R N Laddha ruled that a 14-year period cannot include the remission period such as parole, furlough etc.
The Court has asked the petitioners to approach the Sentence Review Board afresh after the actual completion of 14 years. According to the additional public prosecutor Adv Pravin Faldesai, the four accused had completed actual sentences in jail of 11 to 12 years.
The Court said that as and when the petitioners complete mandatory minimum actual imprisonment of 14 years, their cases can be placed before the State Sentence Review Board in terms of Rules. As and when the occasion arises, the State Sentence Review Board, as also the Presiding Officer of the convicting Court, may have to consider the issues before them in accordance with the Rules and decisions of the Supreme Court referred to above, without, in any manner being influenced by their earlier decisions in these matters.
In their writ petitions, the four petitioners, the convicts sentenced to life imprisonment, had questioned the State government’s order dated May 10, 2021, declining their premature release and submitting that the Sentence Review Board had correctly recommended the premature release.
Additional public prosecutors appearing for the victim’s father contested the contentions of the petitioners. They submitted that the records, in this case, clearly reveal that the petitioners had not suffered 14 years of “actual imprisonment”.
