India, July 11 -- The Delhi high court has reduced the sentence of a 90-year-old man, convicted in a 41-year-old corruption case, from three years to one day-effectively treating the sentence as already served in 1984, when he spent a single day in custody following his arrest. The court observed that imprisonment at this age would pose a severe risk to the convict's physical and mental well-being.

In his ruling delivered on Tuesday, justice Jasmeet Singh granted the relief to Surender Kumar, whose plea challenged a trial court's 2002 order sentencing him to three years in jail for corruption.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered the case against Kumar in 1984 for demanding Rs.15,000 as a bribe for awarding a contract to...