The Delhi High Court on Tuesday gave three-week parole to Santosh Kumar Singh, serving life term for the 1996 rape and murder of law student Priyadarshini Mattoo, to appear for his LLM examination.
The High Court said Singh’s examinations are scheduled to commence from May 24 hence he be released from jail from May 21.
Singh had completed the first branch of LLM in 2014 and thereafter took admission in the second branch. Singh’s counsel sought four-week parole for appearing in LLM branch-II examination and for attending his daughter’s birthday in June.
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The counsel said he had approached the jail authorities for the relief but they did not allow him due to the ongoing Lok Sabha election. The counsel said Singh’s conduct in the jail has been good and he was also doing legal aid there.
The Delhi government Standing Counsel (Criminal) Rahul Mehra filed a status report and told the court that Singh has not misused the liberty granted to him earlier and was also studying in the jail.
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The Delhi government said Singh was in semi-open jail and its sentence review board (SRB) has already recommended for his release.
After noting the submissions, the High Court decided to grant parole to Singh for three weeks. It asked him to furnish a personal bond of ₹25,000 and a surety of the like amount to the satisfaction of the superintendent of jail.
Mattoo (25) was raped and murdered in January 1996. Singh, a law student of Delhi University, was acquitted by the trial court in the case on December 3, 1999, but the Delhi High Court had on October 27, 2006, reversed the decision, holding him guilty of rape and murder and awarded him death penalty.
The son of a former IPS officer had challenged his conviction and death sentence awarded by the High Court.
In October 2010, the Supreme Court had upheld Singh’s conviction but commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.