The widow of IAS officer G Krishnaiah, who was lynched in 1994 by a mob led by former Bihar MP Anand Mohan Singh, has filed a petition in the Supreme Court against his premature release from prison. She argues that life imprisonment awarded as a substitute for death penalty has to be carried out strictly as directed by the court and cannot be subject to remission. The court has agreed to hear the plea on May 8.
Anand Mohan was released from prison on April 24 following an amendment in Bihar’s prison rules. The plea argues that he is a politically influential person who committed G. Krishnaiah’s murder while himself being an MLA. He enjoys political support and has several criminal cases pending against him.
The plea also argues that Anand Mohan was awarded death sentence by the trial court on October 5, 2007, which was later commuted to ‘rigorous imprisonment for life’ by the Patna High Court and has been confirmed by the apex court. Anand Mohan has served only 14 years of incarceration and therefore, he is not eligible to be considered for remission as per Rule 481 (1)(c) of the Bihar Prison Manual, 2012.
The plea contends that the Bihar government has specially brought about an amendment to the Bihar Prison Manual, 2012 with retrospective effect in order to ensure that the convict, Anand Mohan, be granted the benefit of remission. It argues that this amendment is against public policy and has resulted in demoralisation of the civil servants in the state. Therefore, it suffers from the vice of malafide and is manifestly arbitrary and is contrary to the idea of a welfare state.
In 1994, Krishnaiah, then District Magistrate of Gopalganj, who hailed from Telangana, was beaten to death by a mob when his vehicle tried to overtake the funeral procession of gangster Chhotan Shukla. The mob was instigated by Anand Mohan.
