New Delhi: Delhi High Court is likely to decide on Tuesday the plea for premature release filed by Santosh Kumar Singh, who is serving a life term for the 1996 rape and murder of law student Priyadarshini Mattoo. Justice Sanjeev Narula, after hearing submissions from the state and Singh, reserved the order on his plea on May 14. In his 2023 petition, Singh sought the quashing of the recommendation of Sentence Review Board (SRB) of Delhi prisons, which rejected his premature release in a meeting held on Oct 21, 2021.Senior advocate Mohit Mathur, representing Singh, previously argued that his client was sentenced to a life term and already underwent 25 years of incarceration, including remission. Mathur stated that Singh’s conduct was satisfactory, indicating reformation and the fact that he lost every potential to commit a crime in the future. He would be a useful member of society, and for the past several years, he has been in an open jail, the counsel submitted.It came to the court’s notice that another SRB meeting was held on Sept 18, 2024, and his case was again rejected for premature release. Mattoo, 25, was raped and murdered in Jan 1996. Singh, a law student at Delhi University, was acquitted by the trial court on Dec 3, 1999, but Delhi High Court, on Oct 27, 2006, overruled the decision, holding him guilty of rape and murder and awarded him the death penalty.Singh, the son of a former IPS officer, challenged the punishment. In Oct 2010, Supreme Court upheld Singh’s conviction but commuted his capital punishment to life imprisonment. The high court granted Singh three weeks’ parole in 2019 to appear for the LLM examination after he completed the first branch of LLM in 2014 and took admission in the second branch..
