India, July 30 -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the release of Nitish Katara murder convict Sukhdev Pehelwan on completing 20 years of his life-term sentence, without any remission, even as the court, in a separate proceeding, dismissed a plea by another convict, Vikas Yadav, who challenged the 25-year bar on remission imposed as punishment for the crime committed in 2002.

In his petition, Pehelwan sought release, contending that the judgment of the top court convicting him in October 2016 had imposed a fixed-term sentence of 20 years without remission.

A bench of justices BV Nagarathna and KV Vishwanathan accepted the argument and held that as per the 2016 decision, the 20-year sentence ended in March. "In these circumstances, h...