Kamal Ghorui
New Delhi: In a significant development in the 1996 Priyadarshini Mattoo murder case, Delhi High Court on Thursday directed convict Santosh Singh to surrender on Monday, after the victim’s brother strongly opposed his plea for premature release. Justice Anup J Bhambhani issued the order after taking note of submissions by Hemant Mattoo, Priyadarshini’s elder brother and the last surviving member of the family. The court said it would consider Singh’s plea for remission only after he surrenders. Earlier in Jan, the court had issued notice to Hemant, noting that the “next of kin of the deceased/victim have not been intimated of the pendency of the present petition seeking premature release.” Singh, who was granted parole last year, has remained out of prison after securing extensions from the high court while his plea for remission is pending. Appearing in the matter for the first time after being asked by the court, Hemant—represented by advocate Urvika Suri—opposed the plea and said he wished to assist the court in explaining why the Sentence Review Board (SRB) was right in rejecting Singh’s request for premature release. Last year, a different high court bench had set aside the SRB’s decision, observing that Singh had shown signs of reform. The court noted that the SRB had relied only on the gravity, cruelty and perversity of the crime, and on objections raised by Delhi Police and the CBI. The bench had also noted that Singh was lodged in an open prison, allowing him to leave the prison complex daily between 8 am and 8 pm for work as a legal consultant—an indication, it said, of positive reformative conduct. Priyadarshini Mattoo, 25, was raped and murdered in Jan 1996. Singh, then a law student at Delhi University, was acquitted by a trial court in 1999. However, on Oct 27, 2006, Delhi High Court overturned the verdict, convicted him of rape and murder, and sentenced him to death. In Oct 2010, Supreme Court upheld the conviction but commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.
