The Delhi High Court on Tuesday set aside the order given by the Sentence Review Board (SRB) of Delhi Prisons denying premature release to Santosh Kumar Singh, convicted in the 1996 rape and murder case of law student Priyadarshini Mattoo.
The single-judge Bench of Justice Sanjeev Narula referred the matter back to SRB for fresh consideration on the grounds that it found elements of reformation in Singh.
Noting that the current framework of SRB did not contemplate a formal psychological evaluation of a convict by a competent medical professional, the single-judge Bench laid down certain guidelines for the Board to take an informed assessment as to whether a convict had lost the propensity to commit the crime.
The High Court also suggested the SRB to conduct psychological assessment of convicts before taking a decision.
Singh, currently serving life imprisonment, moved the High Court in 2023, challenging the SRB order.
Mattoo was raped and murdered at her flat in Delhi in January 1996. Singh was a law student of the Delhi University. He was acquitted by the trial court on December 3, 1999 for lack of evidence.
On October 27, 2006, the Delhi High Court overruled the verdict and held Singh guilty of rape and murder of 25-year-old Mattoo. He was awarded death penalty, which he challenged before the Supreme Court.
In 2010, the Apex Court upheld Singh’s conviction but commuted his death penalty to life imprisonment.