Pre-mature release of life-convicts as per already framed policy- Clarifies Punjab Government spokesperson

Chandigarh, August 19, 2014: Taking cognizance of the recent media reports about the pre-mature release of Gurmeet Singh alias Pinki by the Punjab Government, an official spokesperson has clarified that on pre-mature release of life-convicts, the State Government has already framed a policy on April 04, 2013.
According to the said policy, those male adults who were convicted for murder and have been given life-imprisonment as punishment, and have completed ten years of actual imprisonment, can apply for pre-mature release. On such application, recommendations of concerned Deputy Commissioner, Police Chief of the District and Gram Panchayat are sought and if the case is recommended, then it is further processed. If any such application by the concerned convict is found as per policy of pre-mature release, the same is recommended by Home (Jails) Department to Governor and once the approval of Governor is granted, on such approval any convict is released.
It is to be noted that if a convict has maintained good conduct during conviction period and works in open jail Nabha, that convict also gets benefits of one more year. In the case of Gurmeet Singh, convict, he completed more than 15 years of total conviction and more than 9 years of actual conviction. On his application, the case was duly recommended by Gram Panchayat, Distt. Police and Deputy Commissioner on 08-11-2013. After that this case was further recommended by ADGP (Jails) on 04-04-2014.  Subsequently, this case was finally approved and orders were issued on 17-04-2014. Consequently, this convict was released after due process on 24-04-2014.    
It would be pertinent to mention that since January 2014, 164 cases which were in accordance with the policy have been recommended for pre-mature release from Jail and out of them 91 convicts have already been released. The case of Convict Gurmeet Singh is covered in the policy and action in the case has been taken as per the policy, as in similarly placed other cases of pre-mature releases.