NEWS

More than 400 convicts lodged in Delhi’s three jails are set to have their sentences remitted or reduced for showing good conduct during incarceration.

DETAILS

• The decision comes days after the city government accepted the Delhi Prisons’ proposal, moved every year on the occasion of Republic Day.
• Granting remission is a discretionary power of the State government under Section 432 of CrPC where it can at any time suspend the execution of the convict’s sentence or remit the punishment.

TERMS

• Pardon: It removes both the sentence and the conviction and completely absolves the convict from all sentences, punishments and disqualifications.
• Commutation: It denotes the substitution of one form of punishment for a lighter form. For example, a death sentence may be commuted to rigorous imprisonment, which in turn may be commuted to a simple imprisonment.
• Remission: It implies reducing the period of sentence without changing its character. For example, a sentence of rigorous imprisonment for two years may be remitted to rigorous imprisonment for one year.
• Respite: It denotes awarding a lesser sentence in place of one originally awarded due to some special fact, such as the physical disability of a convict or the pregnancy of a woman offender.
• Reprieve: It implies a stay of the execution of a sentence (especially that of death) for a temporary period. Its purpose is to enable the convict to have time to seek pardon or commutation.

PARDONING POWERS

• ARTICLE 72 – It says that the President shall have the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence.
• The power of the President to grant pardon extends in cases where the punishment or sentence is by a Court Martial but Article 161 does not provide any such power to the Governor.
• The President can grant pardon in all cases where the sentence given is sentence of death but pardoning power of Governor does not extend to death sentence cases.