Research from an Institute of Criminology student has helped secure a significant legal victory in Delhi, India.
A prisoner sentenced to life, Vikas Kumar Shukla, was granted premature release by the Delhi High Court. This is similar to parole in England & Wales. Shukla had spent 26 years and 11 months in prison and was denied release on 6 previous occasions by Delhi’s Sentence Review Board (SRB). However, a social justice group iProBono argued that these previous evaluations were ‘mechanical rejections’ that disregarded evidence suggesting Shukla’s potential to reintegrate into society. One source they used was the research of Karan Tripathi, a PhD student at the Institute of Criminology.
Tripathi’s study, titled ‘Entrapped in a penal time capsule: Extralegal discourses in sentence review of life prisoners in India’, focuses on India’s administration of life imprisonment in India. Life imprisonment is not only one of the harshest sanctions, but also seemingly popular in India, being the prescribed punishment for more than 50 crimes. Tripathi (2024) shows that as many as 60% of India’s total sentenced prisoners are serving a life sentence.
To support rehabilitation and ensure efficient correctional administration, lifers are required to be assessed for premature release after a period of time. This occurs after 10 years if the person is guilty of a non-capital offence, or after 14 years if guilty of a capital offence. Each state in India has a Sentence Review Board (SRB) that reviews lifers’ applications and recommends or rejects release.
Decisions on life imprisonment are ostensibly based on many different factors. Socio-economic background, reformation, and potential to reintegrate into society are meant to be considered alongside the nature of the initial offence. But Tripathi’s research found that this was often not the case.
The study used SRB meetings from 2018 to 2021 and interviews with current and former members of the SRB. These revealed that in that time, they rejected over three-quarters of applications. Nor was the reviewing process unbiased in its approach. Cases were overwhelmingly decided based on the gravity of offence. Other factors, such as those mentioned above, were frequently overlooked. In particular, Delhi’s SRB overlooked whether life prisoners had taken educational or employment-based training.
Unfortunately, this study also highlighted a pervasive culture within these review boards, which viewed prisoners as always at risk of reoffending and responsible for their improvement. This mindset reinforced the focus on gravity of offence, potentially reducing support for measures that could aid rehabilitation.
Finally, while the review boards are supposed to be apolitical, this is not the reality. There are 7 members on Delhi’s board, 6 of which represent parts of the state’s executive branch. This makes political influence difficult to avoid. Tripathi’s research also found that Delhi’s board often avoided reducing life sentences, due to fears about public perception. There was a belief that they should maintain a hardline stance around crime for public approval.
“The sentence review decision making has been extremely political,” he argues. “Some people are released despite committing heinous offences, while other people who are deserving of release are not, because it was beneficial to the government. That’s why it’s important to carefully scrutinise every decision, to see whether it’s serving the purpose of justice or the purpose of electoral politics.”
This research helped iProBono argue that Shukla had been evaluated solely on the gravity of their offence. They successfully convinced the court to consider other factors, resulting in Shukla’s premature release.
In the aftermath of this case, a new checklist was created for the Delhi High Court to consider in future cases. This checklist emphasises a prisoner’s socio-economic status, as well as evaluating if they have changed during imprisonment. Going forward, the SRB will inform prisoners about the decisions while they are being made. Previously, they could make decisions without informing them.
While these changes please Tripathi, he also emphasises the need for wider reform of the Sentence Review Board.
“I hope to see a complete structural overhaul of how the sentence review process is done,” he says. “I welcome the judgement and the checklist, because this is a very systematic intervention in SRB’s decision-making. But I still don’t think it’s enough.”
He advocates for policies such as establishing a separate law for the sentencing review process in India.
"The absence of clear legal structure allows arbitrary, punitive, and politically motivated discretion to creep in” he explains. “And we need to change the composition of who sits on the review board, because 6 of the 7 members are political executives or those who represent the state's executive branch. We need more independent representation in the sentencing, and better legal representation for lifers in the review process.”