# Supreme Court orders release of 105-year-old life convict in 1988 murder 2026-08-21T13:18:47+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 2 independent outlets The Supreme Court has ordered the premature release of Rasik Chandra Mondal, a 105-year-old life convict in a 1988 murder case. A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana made the interim bail order of 2024 absolute, closing the case. The court found no justification for keeping him in custody given his age, even though he had not completed his life sentence. Mondal was convicted under Section 302 of the IPC in 1994 for a murder that took place in West Bengal in 1988. His appeal to the Calcutta High Court was dismissed in 2018, and the Supreme Court later dismissed his appeal against that conviction. He filed a petition for premature release in 2020 when he was 99 years old, and was granted interim bail or parole in 2024. Both livelaw.in and NDTV report the same outcome with no significant differences in facts or framing. ## Indian Opinion Analysis The coverage from both sources is uniform straight reporting with no discernible slant. Neither outlet highlights any controversy or opposition to the decision. The focus is on the court's reasoning based on the convict's advanced age. Readers should note that this is a purely procedural closure of a long-pending mercy petition, not a ruling on the merits of the conviction. The key fact is the age of the petitioner, which drove the court's decision. ## Coverage Coverage: 2 sources, 2 neutral - livelaw.in (neutral report) Straight factual reporting of the court order with case details, no editorialising. - ndtv.com (neutral report) Brief factual report on the closure of the case, no slant. This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above. Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources. Last updated 2026-08-21T16:40:52+00:00. Tags: Calcutta High Court, Rasik Chandra Mondal, Supreme Court of India, West Bengal Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/supreme-court-orders-release-of-105-year-old-life-convict/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/supreme-court-orders-release-of-105-year-old-life-convict/#story-in-brief How this brief was made: an AI model read the reports linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. Stance labels are editorial classifications of how each outlet framed this story, assigned by the same model, not ratings of the outlets. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/