After spending more than 18 years in prison serving the jail terms awarded to him in 14 different criminal cases one after the other, a 60-year old convict finally got relief with the Kerala High Court directing that he be released forthwith. Justice Ashok Menon directed release of a 60-year-old man convicted taking into account that the convict had already undergone 15 years of imprisonment and would have to be in jail for more than 18 years since sentence in all the cases were running consecutively.
The man was arrested in 2003 and was in prison ever since and if the high court had not intervened he would have ended up serving around 30 years in jail for offenses like theft, housebreaking, lurking house-trespass by night, etc.
The petitioner contended that being indulged in different cases committed at different periods of time and pending before different courts, none of the courts exercised the discretion under Section 427 CrPC to order the sentences to run concurrently. In such case, the sentences were to run consecutively one after the other, accordingly, he would have to remain behind bars for 30 years and 6 months.
''Under the circumstances, exercising the jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Cr PC, the state and prison authorities are directed to release the petitioner (Sivanandan) forthwith recording that he has undergone the sentence in all the crimes in which he was convicted,'' Justice Menon said.
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