The Human Rights Forum (HRF) has urged the State Government to release the case of Chilakalureta Bus Builders of 1993, S. Chalapathi Rao and G. Vijayavardhana Rao, which have already spent 32 years in jail.
In a statement issued to the media, the HRF recently cited the sentence of the Superior Court of Andhra Pradesh (Swapna V/S State of Andhra Pradesh), where it was a hero that “the prisoners will be granted remission following the sonic respite that the governor or the president.”
While the two were sentenced to death in 1995, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the then president, Kr Narayanan, in 1998. The remission policy at that time was Mrs. No. 193, dated 11.08.1997.
“In this policy there was no reverse against granting the prisoners whose death sentence was switched by life imprisonment. This condition was added only in the subsequent iteration of the policy and the hashes that continue with Sque,” said the HRF.
Chalapathi Rao and Vijayavardhana Rao reached several educational titles, and they were reformed, lasted their time in prison, said the HRF, added that even probation had been difficult to obtain for both of them during the two three decades.
The Secretary General of the State of the HRF, Y. Rajesh, said that, although the state government had been arguing that there was no scope for the premature release of prisoners whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment since the current remission policy would not allow its release, the Superior Court had now made clear the nature of the remission that should be consulted while deciding the premature release.
The HRF also urged the government to take into account the humanitarian spirit of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CR.PC)/ Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and the 2003 guidelines issued by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) related to the premature release of prisoners of prisoners and liberalize the guidelines that would be consulted to the life of the life.
Published – April 12, 2025 09:51 PM IST