Patna HC Rejects 1984 Letter as Basis for Deferring Life Convict's Premature Release to 2029
A Division Bench led by Chief Justice Sangam Kumar Sahoo held that a 1984 government letter cannot override the Bihar Prison Manual 2012 or Section 433A of the CrPC on premature release eligibility.
The High Court of Judicature at Patna, in an oral order dated 13 May 2026, directed the Bihar State Sentence Remission Board to reconsider the premature release application of Jagarnath Thakur, a life convict who had already served over 15 years of actual custody. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Sangam Kumar Sahoo and Justice Harish Kumar found that the Board's decision to defer consideration of his case until 28 October 2029, on the basis of a government letter from 1984 and a misreading of Section 57 of the Indian Penal Code, was entirely unacceptable. The order also has direct consequences for 19 other prisoners who were excluded from the Board's 11 May 2026 meeting on the same erroneous ground.
The Dispute Before the Court
Jagarnath Thakur was convicted in a case arising out of P.S. Case No. 310 of 2009, Thana Bahadurpur, District Darbhanga. He filed Criminal Appeal (DB) No. 620 of 2024 before the Patna High Court. As the matter progressed, the court's attention turned to the question of whether the Remission Board had properly considered his eligibility for premature release.
When the matter was taken up on 4 May 2026, the court noted that the Board had recorded that premature release would be considered only after completion of twenty years of incarceration with remission, which it calculated would fall on 28 October 2029. This was so even though Thakur had already spent an actual custodial period of 15 years, 7 months and 28 days as on 17 June 2025. The Advocate General, appearing for the State, conceded that Thakur's case did not fall within any of the exceptions in sub-clauses (a), (b) or (c) of clause (i) of Rule 481 of the Bihar Prison Manual, 2012.
The court sought a detailed affidavit explaining why the case had not been considered despite actual custody exceeding 15 years, and why consideration was being deferred to 2029.
The State's Justification and Why the Court Rejected It
In a counter affidavit dated 12 May 2026, Rajiv Kumar, A.I.G. (R) Prisons and Correctional Services, Bihar, offered two grounds for the Board's position. First, that completion of 20 years of incarceration with remission is a condition precedent for considering a premature release proposal in life imprisonment cases. Second, that this condition finds legal justification in Section 57 of the IPC (Section 6 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023), which provides that imprisonment for life shall be reckoned as equivalent to imprisonment for twenty years. The affidavit also relied on Letter No. 550 dated 21 January 1984 as the source of the 20-year requirement.
The Division Bench rejected both grounds in clear terms. On the 1984 letter, the court held that after the enactment of the Bihar Prison Manual, 2012, the authorities should not have treated a four-decade-old administrative letter as a ground for either rejecting the appellant's case or deferring its consideration to 2029.
On the Section 57 argument, the court relied on the Supreme Court's decision in Swamy Shraddananda v State of Karnataka, reported in (2008) 13 Supreme Court Cases 767, which had held that Section 57 of the IPC does not in any way limit the punishment of imprisonment for life to a term of twenty years. Section 57 exists only for calculating fractions of terms of punishment, specifically to enable courts to work out sentences under provisions such as Sections 65, 116, 119, 129 and 511 of the IPC, which fix imprisonment as a fraction of the maximum for the principal offence. The court also referred to Ashok Kumar v Union of India, (1991) 3 Supreme Court Cases 498, to the same effect. The reliance on Section 6 of the BNS (the successor to Section 57 IPC) for the purpose of fixing a 20-year threshold for premature release consideration was therefore, in the court's view, wholly irrelevant.
What Rule 481 of the Bihar Prison Manual, 2012 Actually Requires
Rule 481 of the Bihar Prison Manual, 2012 is the operative provision. It explicitly mandates that every convicted prisoner, male or female, undergoing a sentence of life imprisonment and covered by Section 433A of the CrPC (Section 475 of the BNSS) shall be eligible to be considered for premature release immediately after serving 14 years of actual imprisonment, that is, without counting remissions, provided the case does not fall within the exceptions in sub-clauses (a), (b) or (c) of clause (i) of that Rule.
Section 433A of the CrPC, which remains unchanged in its corresponding provision under the BNSS, sets a minimum of 14 years of actual imprisonment before the remission power under Section 432 can be exercised in life imprisonment cases. The court referred to the Supreme Court's decision in State of Haryana v Raj Kumar @ Bittu, (2021) 9 Supreme Court Cases 292, which had clarified that a prisoner must undergo a minimum of 14 years without remission in cases where the conviction carries a death sentence, before the State Government's remission power under Section 432 can be exercised.
The court also drew on Sukhdev Yadav alias Pehalwan v State (NCT of Delhi) and Ors., 2025 Supreme Court Cases OnLine SC 1671, which had explained that Section 433A picks out a specific class of life imprisonment cases and subjects them to particularised treatment, applying in preference to any special or local law.
Since the Advocate General had already conceded that Thakur's case did not attract any of the Rule 481 exceptions, the court found no legal basis for the Board's refusal to consider his application.
The Broader Backlog: 143 Pending Applications
The order also addressed a systemic problem that had surfaced in the previous hearing on 4 May 2026. The court had noted that 143 premature release applications sponsored by Superintendents of Prisons were pending before the Bihar State Sentence Remission Board. The backlog included one application from 2019, five from 2021, three from 2022, six from 2023, sixteen from 2024, seventy-six from 2025, thirteen from 2026, and twenty-three applications where the year was not mentioned.
The court had directed the Home Secretary, Government of Bihar, to file an affidavit on the decisions taken at the Board's meeting scheduled for 11 May 2026. The affidavit filed by A.I.G. (R) Prisons disclosed that after scrutiny, 27 of the 143 cases were found premature: 19 because the prisoners had not completed 20 years of incarceration, 3 because required reports were awaited, and 5 because they were duplicates. Of the remaining 116, 85 were placed before the Board on 11 May 2026, and 40 of those were recommended for approval by the competent authority.
The court found that the 19 prisoners excluded on the ground of not completing 20 years were excluded on the same erroneous basis as Thakur. It directed that their cases also be considered afresh, provided they had completed 14 years of actual imprisonment without remissions and their cases did not fall within the Rule 481 exceptions.
The Question of the Presiding Judge's Opinion
A separate procedural issue arose from Rule 482(vi) of the 2012 Manual, which requires the Superintendent of the prison to obtain the opinion of the Presiding Judge of the court before or by which the conviction was had or confirmed, before forwarding a remission application. The court had flagged in its 4 May 2026 order that, given the passage of time, the original Presiding Judge would rarely be available at the same station, and that a successor judge who had not conducted the trial would have limited basis for forming a meaningful opinion.
The affidavit filed by the prison authorities cited the Supreme Court's decisions in Union of India v V. Sriharan, (2016) 7 Supreme Court Cases 1, and Laxman Naskar v Union of India, (2000) 2 Supreme Court Cases 595, to the effect that the Presiding Judge's opinion is only a relevant factor and does not have any determinative effect, and that the appropriate government should not mechanically follow it.
The court directed Rajnish Kumar Singh, I.G. (Prisons), Prisons and Correctional Services, Bihar, to file an affidavit with a copy of the letter sent to the Presiding Judge and details of the documents furnished to the judge when seeking such an opinion. The I.G. Prisons sought time to comply.
On Bail and Premature Release Eligibility
The court also addressed whether being on bail affects eligibility for premature release consideration. It held that a premature release application can be considered even if the convict is on bail, since eligibility depends on the total sentence served and not solely on the period of physical incarceration. Time spent on bail can be a factor in the overall assessment. Being on bail does not disqualify a convict from having the application considered by the Government.
Order
The Division Bench directed the Bihar State Sentence Remission Board to consider Jagarnath Thakur's premature release application afresh in accordance with law, and to do so expeditiously. The court made clear that it had expressed no opinion on the merits of his application.
The 19 prisoners who were excluded from the 11 May 2026 Board meeting on the erroneous 20-year ground are also to have their cases reconsidered afresh, subject to their having completed 14 years of actual imprisonment without remissions and their cases not attracting the Rule 481 exceptions.
Rajnish Kumar Singh, I.G. (Prisons), is directed to appear through virtual mode on the next date and to file an affidavit detailing the status of Thakur's premature release application after fresh consideration. The matter is listed for 22 June 2026.