The Delhi High Court on Tuesday set aside the Sentence Review Board’s (SRB) decision rejecting the premature release plea of Santosh Kumar Singh, who is serving a life sentence for the 1996 rape and murder of law student Priyadarshini Mattoo.

Justice Sanjeev Narula, while pronouncing the verdict, noted the presence of “some element of reformation” in Singh and directed the SRB to reconsider his application afresh.

“The SRB decision is set aside and I have referred back the matter to the SRB to consider it afresh,” the judge observed.

In addition, the Court laid down certain guidelines for the SRB to follow while evaluating such pleas. Emphasizing the importance of a holistic assessment, the Court directed that psychological evaluations of convicts must form part of the consideration process—a step that had not been undertaken in Singh’s case.

The detailed judgment is awaited.

The plea before the Court challenged the SRB’s October 21, 2021 decision rejecting Singh’s request for premature release. Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur, appearing for the petitioner, argued that Singh had already undergone 25 years of incarceration, including remission, and that his conduct in prison had remained satisfactory. Mathur submitted that Singh has been lodged in an open jail for several years, indicative of his reformation and minimal risk of recidivism.

Despite this, Singh’s plea for premature release was again rejected in a subsequent SRB meeting held on September 18, 2024, the Court was informed.

Santosh Kumar Singh, then a law student at Delhi University and son of a former IPS officer, was initially acquitted by the trial court in December 1999. However, the Delhi High Court overturned the acquittal on October 27, 2006, holding him guilty of rape and murder and sentencing him to death. In 2010, the Supreme Court upheld his conviction but commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.

Priyadarshini Mattoo, 25, was raped and murdered in January 1996, a case that had garnered significant national attention and public outrage at the time.