{"id":4294,"date":"2026-04-17T06:57:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T01:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/public-perception-seems-to-sway-remission-call-delhi-high-court-to-mattoo-convict-india-news\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T06:57:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T01:27:20","slug":"public-perception-seems-to-sway-remission-call-delhi-high-court-to-mattoo-convict-india-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/public-perception-seems-to-sway-remission-call-delhi-high-court-to-mattoo-convict-india-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Public perception seems to sway remission call: Delhi high court to Mattoo convict | India News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"e9jwa\">\n<div class=\"vdo_embedd\">\n<div class=\"GfdvZ\">\n<section class=\"_bIDB  clearfix id-r-component leadmedia undefined undefined  E9tg9 \" style=\"top:0px\">\n<div class=\"_bIDB\" data-ua-type=\"1\" onclick=\"stpPgtnAndPrvntDefault(event)\">\n<div class=\"ypVvZ\">\n<div class=\"WGttI\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-130320514,imgsize-32494,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/delhi-high-court.jpg\" alt=\"Public perception seems to sway remission call: Delhi high court to Mattoo convict\" title=\"Delhi High Court\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>NEW DELHI: Delhi HC, while examining the Sentence Review Board\u2019s decision to deny premature release to <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/santosh-kumar-singh\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\">Santosh Kumar Singh<\/a>, serving life in the 1996 Priyadarshini Mattoo rape and murder case, observed that the board\u2019s decisions seem to be influenced by public perception.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"4\"\/>Justice Anup J Bhambhani said on Thursday that while there was no doubt that the offence was heinous and the family of the deceased suffered a \u201cpermanent loss\u201d, \u201cSRB seems to be proceeding on public perception\u201d.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"6\"\/>\u201cYou are a hugely unpopular person&#8230; Your name doesn\u2019t sound good so I (SRB) am rejecting it,\u201d the judge observed, flagging a trend HC detected in many petitions before it that arose from the board\u2019s rejection of premature release. <!-- -->\u201cThere is something called reformation&#8230; 30 years in custody,\u201d the court added.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"11\"\/>It listed Singh\u2019s petition on the same issue along with similar other petitions on April 20. \u201cYou will be treated objectively. You will be treated in accordance with what I distil,\u201d the court told Singh\u2019s lawyer.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"13\"\/>The HC last month directed convict Singh to surrender after the victim\u2019s brother Hemant Mattoo strongly opposed his plea seeking premature release. The court had then indicated it would consider Singh\u2019s plea for remission only once he surrendered, ending his parole.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"17\"\/>Last year in July, a different HC bench, observing that Singh showed signs of reform, had set aside the board\u2019s decision to reject his remission plea and asked it to take a fresh decision. It, too, had faulted the board for only relying on the gravity, cruelty and perversity of the crime and on objections raised by Delhi Police and the CBI.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"20\"\/>During Thursday\u2019s hearing, senior advocate Mohit Mathur sought an early hearing on the remission plea and contended Singh has already spent 31 years in custody. He said despite HC\u2019s exhaustive decision last year, the board rejected his case again on the same grounds.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"22\"\/>Justice Bhambhani pointed out there were \u201cworse cases\u201d, including that of one convict having spent 41 years in custody since the board was \u201cjust rejecting things\u201d on account of the heinousness of the offence despite receiving recommendations to the contrary.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"25\"\/>In his main petition, Singh challenged the Nov 27, 2025, decision of the board rejecting his case for premature release after HC last year sent the matter back to the board.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"27\"\/>Even as the counsel for Hemant Mattoo opposed the plea to advance the date of hearing, arguing the convict committed a grave offence, HC responded that Singh had been punished for the same.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"29\"\/>\u201cThere is something called reformation. There is something called 30 years in custody. <!-- -->There is something called transfer to open jail,\u201d the court said.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"33\"\/>\u201cI understand your sentiments. What he did was unacceptable and the system punished him. He got life. The offence was heinous. What do we do? We confine a man like this?\u201d justice Bhambhani wondered and highlighted that even the convict in the 1995 Tandoor murder case, Sushil Kumar, was released after serving 23 years in prison.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"35\"\/>Singh\u2019s counsel gave the example of the convict in the 1999 Jessica Lal murder case, who was subsequently released.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"38\"\/>Mattoo, 25, was raped and murdered in Jan 1996. Singh, a law student of Delhi University, was acquitted by the trial court in the case on Dec 3, 1999, but the Delhi HC reversed the decision on Oct 27, 2006, holding him guilty of rape and murder and awarded him the death penalty.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"40\"\/>Singh, the son of a former IPS officer, had challenged his conviction and death sentence awarded by the HC. In Oct 2010, the Supreme Court upheld Singh\u2019s conviction but commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/public-perception-seems-to-sway-remission-call-delhi-high-court-to-mattoo-convict\/articleshow\/130320509.cms\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW DELHI: Delhi HC, while examining the Sentence Review Board\u2019s decision to deny premature release to Santosh Kumar Singh, serving life in the 1996 Priyadarshini Mattoo rape and murder case, observed that the board\u2019s decisions seem to be influenced by public perception.Justice Anup J Bhambhani said on Thursday that while there was no doubt that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-country"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}