SC releases 104-year-old serving life sentence for murder on bail | India News

NEW DELHI: Rasik Chandra Mandal was born in a nondescript village in Malda district in 1920, the year the Indian National Congress launched a non-cooperation movement against the British. More than a century later, he is pleading with the Supreme Court for his freedom as a life partner, reports Dhananjay Mahapatra.
He was convicted in 1994 in a 1988 murder case when he was 68 and serving a life sentence. Due to age-related ailments, he was shifted from prison to a correctional center in Balurghat, West Bengal. His appeal against the conviction was dismissed by the Calcutta HC in 2018 and later by the Supreme Court.
Mandal had filed a writ petition with the SC in 2020, when he was yet to reach the century mark, seeking early release citing his old age and related sentence grievances.
On May 7, 2021, Justices A. Abdul Nazeer, now retired, and Justice Sanjiv Khanna had sent a notice to the West Bengal government, asking the correctional officer to “provide a status report on the physical condition and health of Mandal has been in prison since January 14, 2019.”
The case was heard on Friday before CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar, who sought Mandal status through advocate Astha Sharma, appearing for the West Bengal government. Sharma told the SC that Mandal had age-related health problems but was otherwise in a stable condition and that he would celebrate his 104th birthday soon. The court allowed Mandal’s petition and passed an interim order directing release of Mandal “on interim bail/parole in the case filed on November 9, 1988 at Manikchak police station in Malda district”.
Mandal was found guilty by the trial court on December 12, 1994 and sentenced to punishment life imprisonment. Immediately thereafter, he had appealed against his conviction in the Calcutta HC. However, it took almost a quarter of a century for the HC to uphold his conviction and sentence on January 5, 2018. His appeal against the HC’s decision was dismissed by the SC on March 11, 2019. The old son asks to be released from prison so that he can spend the last days of his life with family members.