Hyderabad: The Supreme Court took a lenient view on a petition from two women from Telangana’s Jogulamba Gadwal district, who were sentenced to life in a murder case.
The top court directed the Telangana high court to set aside its previous order confirming the life sentence for the two women. The women, a vegetable vendor and her mother-in-law, a daily wage labourer, were sentenced by the Gadwal district court in 2014 for killing the paramour of the vegetable vendor’s husband.
Challenging the sentence, they moved the high court, which allotted a legal aid counsel to represent their case. While serving their sentence, the women received remission from the Telangana governor on Gandhi Jayanti in 2020 and were released from prison. However, as the legal aid counsel did not inform the high court of their remission, the high court upheld the life sentence awarded by the district court.
Following the high court’s orders, police issued a warrant for the women to surrender. The two women then approached the Supreme Court, first obtaining a stay on their arrest based on the high court’s orders.
After hearing the case and examining the details, the apex court ruled that the women were permanently set at liberty and cannot be re-arrested simply because the high court upheld the conviction. The court said that an order of remission effectively cancels the sentence.
