A release order for Amarmani Tripathi, stamped by the Uttar Pradesh Governor, was issued just a day before the Supreme Court was to hear a petition on the matter. The apex court has now given the state government eight weeks to the government to send its response in the matter, while refusing to stay the order.
On Friday, Anandiben Patel, signed an order for the release, citing ‘good behaviour’ in prison. The letter also noted that Tripathi, soon to be 66 years old, had already spent 17 years, 9 months and four days in prison.
He is charged under Sections 302 (punishment for murder), 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. His wife is also jailed.
On May 9, 2003, Madhumita Shukla, a poet, was found murdered at her home in Paper Mill Colony in Lucknow’s Nishatganj area. Shukla was in a relationship with then Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Tripathi and was carrying his child at the time of the murder. Tripathi was arrested and later his wife Madhumani was also made a co-accused. In July 2012, a special court in Dehradun upheld the life imprisonment awarded to the Tripathis by a lower court in Lucknow.
Shukla’s sister Nidhi, who has been pursuing the case relentlessly, had filed a contempt petition in the Supreme Court against the Tripathis, alleging that they spend more time outside the jail than inside it. Meanwhile, the convicts filed a number of mercy petitions on various grounds.
Nidhi Shukla said, “How could there be any ‘good behaviour’ inside the prison when they have barely spent any time in there? Instead they have mostly been in hospitals where they have received VIP treatment with Amarmani also holding janta darbars”.
She also said that the Governor had probably been misled on the details of the case and hence had signed the order unaware of the fact that the Supreme Court was to hear it on August 25.
In an earlier interview to The Week, Nidhi had said that while the Tripathis had been awarded life terms, true justice would only be served if they stay in jail. “At present, according to the numerous RTI queries that I have filed, they have spent only 38 per cent time in jail- the rest of the time they were in the Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur (constituency of the state’s CM Yogi Adityanath). Amarmani contends that he has a bone disease. Can that disease not be treated in Uttarakhand where he is supposed to be in jail?”
On the eve of Independence Day, as every year, Nidhi had issued an appeal that the Tripathis name not be on the list of those prisoners who are released on various grounds.
“How can someone who spent almost no time in jail be released from it? I appeal to the people of this country to help my quest for justice. We shall present all proof in court. How long does our wait for justice have to be?”, she said.
It was her persistence that led the case to be transferred from UP to Uttarakhand as the family feared that the politician’s clout would negate the chances of a fair trial.
There has been no notable political reaction as yet on this turn. Tripathi is a heavyweight politician in eastern UP and parties could view him as an asset in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.
