Decide Ram Rahim’s paroles without ‘favouritism or discrimination’: HC to Haryana
The high court bench of chief justice Sheel Nagu and justice Anil Kshetarpal passed these orders while disposing of the January 2023 plea from the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee against frequent paroles to Ram Rahim
The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) on Friday asked the Haryana government to consider pleas for parole/ furloughs from Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim without “favouritism or discrimination”.
The high court bench of chief justice Sheel Nagu and justice Anil Kshetarpal passed these orders while disposing of the January 2023 plea from the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) against frequent paroles to Ram Rahim. It said the Haryana Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release), 2022 has rightly been applied by Haryana while considering and deciding the application of parole filed by Ram Rahim.
The SGPC in the plea had alleged that Haryana was misusing its powers while granting him parole. Instead, the government should have considered his applications under the 1988 Act, in which the conditions were tougher.
The court observed that the act of 1988 stood repealed by the act of 2022 in April 2022 and the petitioner’s “argument is liable to be rejected at the very outset for the simple reason that the act of 2022 governs the process of conditional temporary release of prisoners for good conduct”.
“The object of the act of 2022 is to grant temporary release to the prisoners for good conduct with certain conditions. The act of 2022 would apply to all such applications made by the prisoners seeking parole/furlough on or after April 11, 2022, when the act of 2022 came into operation,” it said.
The court also refused to comment upon the possibility of any breach in law and order/public orders on the temporary release of Ram Rahim in the future observing that any such attempt would lead to venturing into the “arena of assumptions and presumptions”.
“However, this court would like to observe that in case of any application is made by respondent No.9 (Rahim) for temporary release, the same shall be considered strictly in accordance with the provisions of the act of 2022 without the competent authority indulging in arbitrariness or favouritism or discrimination,” the court said.
According to the record submitted in the high court, Ram Rahim, whose jail journey began on August 25, 2017, was granted temporary release from prison for the ninth time on January 19 for 50 days. He is lodged in Sunaria jail in Rohtak district. During proceedings of this PIL, on February 29, the court restrained Haryana from granting him parole/ furlough without the permission of the court. Subsequently, Ram Rahim moved to court seeking modification of the order.
Seeking furlough in his latest application, he had argued that his application for furlough before authorities related to Article 21 of the Constitution (Protection for life and liberty) and that 91 days of temporary release in a calendar year is a statutory right of a prisoner if he found eligible. Hence, the February 29 order should be modified, he had argued.
Ram Rahim has been convicted of 20 years of jail in two rape cases (2017) and a life term for conspiring to murder a journalist (2019). The high court on May 28 had acquitted him in the case of the murder of former dera manager Ranjit Singh in 2002. He is also an accused in multiple FIRs related to 2015 sacrilege incidents pending a probe in Punjab.