NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has disapproved of the practice of the Uttar Pradesh government releasing life convicts who are eligible for remission of sentence only on the Republic Day. The court said the exercise must be done throughout the year and set a deadline of four weeks for the state to decide the plea of prisoners seeking premature release. While deciding a batch of petitions filed by over 30 life convicts lodged in different jails in Uttar Pradesh, a bench of Justices Navin Sinha and V Ramasubramanian also held that the state government should itself find out prisoners who are fulfilling the criteria for premature release as per its 2018 policy and release them. The state framed the policy on the directions of the Allahabad HC.