Unreasonable to ask prisoner to wait for one-and-half year for parole: HC
The Bombay High Court criticized the state for denying a prisoner's parole based on unconstitutional rules, directing a reconsideration of his application.
MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Friday admonished the state government for rejecting a prisoner’s parole application on rules that had earlier been held as unconstitutional. A bench of justice Bharti Dangre and justice Manjusha Deshpande was hearing the plea of the prisoner whose application to tend to his ill wife had been rejected on the grounds that he had not completed three years of imprisonment from the date of his admission to prison.
Additional public prosecutor MM Deshmukh, appearing for the state, contended although prisoners could be granted parole on serious illness of family, delivery of wife, and in case of natural calamities, but the 2022 amendment to the Maharashtra Prisons (Mumbai Furlough and Parole) Rules, 1959 prohibited such consideration for parole leave if the prisoner had not completed three years of actual imprisonment from the date of their admission to the prison.
The court was hearing petition filed by Balaji Puyad, an inmate of the Nashik Road Central Prison, whose application for parole in September, that was submitted to the superintendent of the prison, was rejected on the grounds that he was not eligible to be considered for parole. This was due to the 2022 amendment, as he had not completed three years in jail.
While deciding the prisoner’s plea, the court stated that a full bench of the court in Nagpur had declared such a provision unconstitutional for being manifestly arbitrary.
“We are really surprised to note that despite exposition of law to the aforesaid effect, an identical provision has found its way in the Furlough Rules” the court said. It added that serious illness of family member, natural calamities are definitely an unforeseen contingency and one cannot speculate as to when it will occur. In such a case, the prisoner shall not be asked to wait for one and half year of actual imprisonment, to be undergone by him, when he seek parole leave on any of these contingencies.”
While deciding the prisoner’s plea, the court directed the prison authorities to reconsider the prisoner’s application on merit. “... it is open for the authority to ascertain, whether the cause cited by the Petitioner is genuine and if it is found to be so, then (the parole rules) shall not come in his way in availing the parole leave.”