Priyadarshini Mattoo Case: Supreme Court Declines To Entertain Plea On Santosh Singh’s Parole Extension

The bench of Justices B. V. Nagarathna and Prashant Kumar Mishra observed that the High Court is scheduled to hear the matter on May 18 and granted liberty to Singh to seek early hearing and expeditious disposal of his plea.

“It is needless to say that if such a request is made, the High Court shall consider it, having regard to the facts of the case that the incident occurred on January 23, 1996, and the petitioner has been in jail for 31 years, including remission,” the Bench noted.

The Court also requested the High Court to dispose of the matter at the earliest in accordance with law.

During the hearing, counsel for Singh argued that the High Court had passed a “drastic order” directing him to surrender, despite the fact that he had been serving his sentence in an open prison. It was submitted that Singh had been allowed to step out of the prison complex daily between 8 am and 8 pm for employment purposes and had remained on parole after securing multiple extensions while his remission plea was pending.

On March 19, the Delhi High Court had directed Singh to surrender after opposition from the victim’s family, particularly Priyadarshini Mattoo’s brother, who contested his plea for premature release. The High Court had clarified that Singh’s remission plea would be considered only after he surrendered.

The case traces back to January 1996, when 25-year-old Priyadarshini Mattoo was raped and murdered in Delhi. Singh, then a law student at Delhi University and son of a former IPS officer, was acquitted by a trial court in 1999. However, the Delhi High Court reversed the acquittal in 2006, convicting him and awarding the death penalty.

In 2010, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction but commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.

In July last year, the Delhi High Court had set aside the decision of the Sentence Review Board (SRB) rejecting Singh’s premature release, observing that his reformative conduct had not been adequately considered. The Court noted that Singh’s placement in an open prison reflected “positive reformative conduct,” which ought to have been meaningfully evaluated.

It had further held that the SRB’s rejection order lacked proper reasoning and failed to assess Singh’s educational achievements, good conduct, and participation in rehabilitation programmes.

Despite this, Singh’s plea for premature release was reconsidered in 2024 and rejected again by the SRB.