Editor Mr.Mayank Rawat ( Chief Editor Mr. Rohit Mishra )
New Delhi: Delhi High Court has said that merely because a convict spent over 20 years in jail, prison authorities cannot reduce him to a “chattel”.
Jail officials must deal with parole requests with greater compassion, it said.
Granting four weeks’ parole to a rape and murder convict, the court cautioned authorities against rejecting such relief repeatedly on the same grounds, directing them to be conscious of orders.
“Once the court has specifically observed that this is not a valid ground for denying parole, the insistence to persist on making this a ground for the rejection of parole every time, compelling the petitioner to come to the court, is neither warranted, nor appreciated. The jail administration must be… aware of the orders being made by the court and follow them scrupulously,” Justice Neena Bansal Krishna said, pointing out that it could not be overlooked that the convict had spent over two decades in jail.
“But that does not denude him of his basic right to life. Merely because he is confined to jail does not reduce his status to that of a chattel,” it said, noting that he attempted suicide in 2022.
The lifer belonged to the poor strata and wanted parole for maintaining social and family ties, the court said.
It found the “most glaring aspect,” to be the fact that convict filed the plea in Nov 2024, but it remained undecided within the mandated one-month period, and thereafter the jail rejected it “that too in the most arbitrary way”.
“The jail authorities must be aware and conscious that an attempt to suicide reflects a mental condition. Rather, it should have rung the alarm bell that the convict needs to maintain the social ties for his mental health,” it said.
Mayank Rawat
