The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the prison management authority to free the infamous serial killer Charles Sobhraj on the ground of age.

A division bench of Justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Til Prasad Shrestha has also asked the government to arrange to send him to his home country, France, within 15 days. Responding to the petitions seeking the release of Sobhraj, who was convicted of killing two foreign nationals in Nepal, the court concluded that the 78-year-old should be freed as he has already completed 95 percent of his jail term.

“The regulation on prison management envisions a waiver of up to 75 percent of the jail term of the prisoners over 65 years of age and with good conduct,” reads the verdict.

Sobhraj’s lawyers had long been demanding the court’s intervention for clemency. In different petitions they had demanded a waiver to his jail sentence, citing provisions of Clause 12 (1) of the Senior Citizens Act 2063.

Clause 12 (1) of the Senior Citizen Act states that senior citizens can get a waiver of sentence not exceeding 50 percent for those who have completed the age of 70 years, and 75 percent for those who have completed 75 years of age.

The notorious criminal with police cases in different countries was convicted of killing the American citizen Connie Jo Boronzich, 29, and his Canadian girlfriend Laurent Carrière, 26, in 1975.

Arrested on September 19, 2003, Sobhraj’s lifetime imprisonment would end on September 18 next year. The French citizen with Vietnamese and Indian parentage committed a string of murders throughout Asia in the 1970s.

Sobhraj, who has been implicated in more than 20 killings, served 21 years in prison in India for poisoning a French tourist and killing an Israeli national.