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Former Haryana CM Om Prakash Chautala released from jail
Chautala, his son Ajay, and 53 others were convicted on January 13, 2013, by a Delhi court for illegally recruiting 3,206 basic teachers in Haryana in 1999-2000 when the INLD chief was the chief minister
Former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala was on Friday released from Tihar jail where he was serving a ten-year sentence after his conviction in a corruption case.
Chautala, his son Ajay, and 53 others were convicted on January 13, 2013, by a Delhi court for illegally recruiting 3,206 basic teachers in Haryana in 1999-2000 when the INLD chief was the chief minister. A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe was ordered by the Supreme Court on a petition by IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar, who accused the leader of taking bribes to recruit teachers and said he was forced to change the original list of selected candidates.
The 86-year-old senior politician was out on parole on medical grounds and admitted to a hospital in Gurugram when prison officers wrote to him on June 22, saying his sentencing was over.
On Friday morning, he reached the Tihar jail complex to surrender, and completed the release formalities. A prison spokesperson confirmed Chautala has been released. “He came at 2 in the morning, to the jail where he was lodged before parole. He completed the paper work related to his sentencing and has now been released.”
Chautala was out since March 26 last year when Tihar jail authorities released 1,000 prisoners on parole to decongest prisons in view of the Covid pandemic. Prison officials said he didn’t return to Tihar in February this year like the others released with him, citing “medical grounds”.
The veteran politician, who continued to head the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) through his prison term, moved the Delhi high court for an extension of his parole. “It was extended twice by the HC,” said a prison official on the condition of anonymity.
Prison officials said Chautala has been released because he has less than 3 months’ jail sentence left, which would be counted as remission.
Last month, the Delhi government has issued an order granting remission to prisoners who have less than 6 months of their sentence left. Like Chautala, at least 20 other convicts, who qualified for remission, have been released.
Prison officials said Ajay Chautala does not qualify for the same because he still has to serve about seven to eight months. To be sure, this is not the first time the government has granted remission to such prisoners.
A family feud led Ajay, who is still in prison, to walk out of the party and form the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) with his sons Dushyant and Digvijay Chautala in December 2018.
JJP won 10 seats in the 2019 assembly polls and Dushyant became the deputy chief minister in Haryana’s coalition government led by BJP’s Manohar Lal Khattar. Chautala’s INLD was confined to only one seat which was won by his son Abhay from Ellenabad seat in Sirsa. Abhay resigned from the assembly in January this year in support of farmers protesting against three farm laws.
