The Delhi High Court has directed the premature release of a former member of the President’s Bodyguard convicted in the 2003 Buddha Jayanti Park gang rape case, holding that the justice system cannot keep a person imprisoned long after reform has clearly taken root.
In a detailed ruling, the Court noted that Harpreet Singh had spent more than two decades behind bars and maintained an unblemished record throughout his incarceration. With the reformative goals of punishment already met, the Court said, continued imprisonment would serve no legitimate purpose.
Justice Neena Bansal Krishna observed that the Constitution does not permit “eternal alienation” of a prisoner once correction has been achieved. Drawing on the idea of Kafkaesque isolation, the judgment underlined that unlike Kafka’s doomed characters, Indian constitutional law is anchored in the belief that human beings can change—and that the State must recognise that change when it occurs.
The Court ordered Singh’s immediate release.
Background of the case
The case traces back to October 2003, when a 17-year-old Delhi University student and her companion were intercepted at Buddha Jayanti Park near Rashtrapati Bhavan. According to the prosecution, four men robbed the pair, after which two of them raped the young woman while the others stood guard.
In 2009, a trial court sentenced two former President’s Bodyguards, including Singh, to life imprisonment for gang rape. The remaining accused were convicted of robbery and kidnapping and given fixed-term sentences.
Why the Court stepped in
Singh had repeatedly applied for premature release, but his requests were turned down by the Sentence Review Board (SRB), a decision later endorsed by the Lieutenant Governor. He then approached the High Court, arguing that the rejection ignored his long record of good conduct and rehabilitation.
The Court agreed.
It held that while the seriousness of an offence is undeniable, it cannot be treated as a permanent veto against release. The gravity of a crime, the Court said, is a “static, historical fact” that never changes. Using it as the sole basis to deny remission decades later effectively converts a life sentence into “death by incarceration,” hollowing out the reformative promise of criminal justice.
The judgment was sharply critical of the SRB’s approach. Despite favourable reports from prison authorities, probation officers and other agencies, the Board focused almost exclusively on the original offence. The Court described the rejection orders as formulaic, superficial and reflective of a “copy-paste” mindset, showing clear non-application of mind.
Instead of assessing the person Singh had become, the SRB, the Court said, merely re-litigated the past.
Evidence of reform
The record before the Court showed no adverse jail entries, successful completion of vocational and reform programmes, and multiple parole and furlough releases without a single violation. At one point, even the SRB had recorded that Singh’s risk of reoffending was “nil.”
Yet his applications continued to be rejected—primarily because of the nature of the crime committed more than 20 years ago.
The Court rejected that logic outright. To judge a person solely by a decades-old offence while ignoring a long, documented transformation, it said, is to deny the very idea of human change on which reformative punishment is built.
Final word
The High Court made it clear that when a prisoner has served the maximum period contemplated under remission rules and still faces arbitrary rejections, constitutional courts are duty-bound to intervene.
Allowing the petition, it ordered Harpreet Singh’s immediate release, bringing to an end more than 21 years of incarceration—and reaffirming that punishment, under the Constitution, is meant not only to condemn, but also to correct.
