MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday rejected the release plea of a double-murder convict, noting that the President commuted his death penalty to life imprisonment without remission.
Sunil Baban Pingale, convicted in 1997 by the Pune Sessions Court for killing his mother-in-law and sister-in-law, sought release on the ground that he had completed over 28 years in prison – as required under the category in which the jail authorities had placed him.
A division bench of Justices A S Gadkari and Shyam Chandak dismissed his petition, observing that the Presidential pardon commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment specified that he must remain in prison for the remainder of his life without any remission.
According to the prosecution, the case dates back to 1994, when Pingale’s wife Sunita left him due to ill-treatment, filed a police complaint against him and returned to her parents’ home.
Angered by this, Pingale went to his in-laws’ place, where he fought and pushed his pregnant wife into a well-like structure, causing serious injuries. He then attacked her mother and sister with a sword, killing them. A cousin of Sunita, who tried to intervene was also injured.
The Pune Sessions Court sentenced him to death in August 1997. The Bombay High Court confirmed the sentence in 1998, and the Supreme Court upheld it a year later. However, on March 21, 2011, the President commuted the sentence to life imprisonment without remission following his application for pardon.