civil Liberties For this purpose all the State Governments are directed to fix the rate of such interim wages within six weeks (from 24 September 1998) and report to the Court compliance with the direction'. 3.56 Following the directions ofthe Supreme Court, most of the State Governments have made upward revision of the paltry wages being paid to prisoners. Premature Release of Life Term Prisoners 3.57 The Commission has been receiving complaints fix)m and on behalf of convicts undergoing life imprisonment about the non-consideration of their cases for premature release, even after they have undergone long periods of sentence ranging from 10-20 years, tvith or without remissions. On a closer study of the issues involved, the Commission noted that this issue impinged upon the human rights of a large number of convicts undergoing life imprisonment in prisons throughout the length and breadth of the country. 3.58 Scrutiny of the matter by the Commission revealed that although the said power of premature release is to be exercised by the State Governments under the provisions of Section 432 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, the procedure and practice being followed by various State Governments was not uniform. It ^vas found that the eligibility criteria for consideration for premature release, the composition of the Sentence Review Boards and the guidelines governing the question of premature release differed from State to State, and even those were not meticulously implemented. There were long gaps between the meetings of the Review Boards. 3.59 This had resulted in a pitiful situation in which prisoners were not being released, even though some of them had undergone a sentence for over 20 years. The Commission felt it was high time to evolve a uniform system, which could be strictly followed in all States. 3.60 A Committee comprising of Shri R.C. Jain, Registrar General, Shri D.R. Karthikeyan, Director General (Investigation) and Shri Sankar Sen, Special Rapporteur, was accordingly constituted to evolve a set of recommendations to bring uniformity to the procedure. 3.61 The Committee considered all aspects of the issue and drew up a set of guidelines to be followed by the States. The Commission examined these guidelines and directed that they may be referred to the States and Union Territories for eliciting their views and comments. Some of the States and Union Territories responded with suggestions and comments. After taking these comments and suggestions into account, the guidelines were finalised and circulated to all States and Union Territories for compliance. States and Union Territories were asked to implement the guidelines and to modify their existing rules/provisions, wherever these \vere inconsistent with the fresh guidelines. 33