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India: Supreme Court reprieve for mentally ill man on death row

Taking into account the plight of a condemned prisoner who became mentally-ill after being kept in the solitary confinement for more than 10 years, the Supreme Court on Friday commuted his sentence to 30 years’ jail term without remission.

A bench of Chief Justice U U Lalit and Justices S Ravindran Bhat and P S Narasimha allowed the plea of the convict seeking commutation of his sentence to life imprisonment. The bench held that putting a convict under solitary confinement for a long time is violative of the apex court’s earlier ruling that could be a ground to grant relief.