Now the families of prisoners will not have to go to Chandigarh to get sanction of parole for their kin who are convicted and serving sentence in various jails as the Punjab government has given special powers to deputy commissioners (DCs) in the state.
The department of home (jails) issued a fresh notification recently wherein it sanctioned these powers to DCs under section 4 of the Punjab Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Act 1962.
As per earlier procedure, any convicted person after passing of four months of his or her sentence into jails, gets eligible for getting first parole which was regarded as right of prisoners.
The prisoner has to move an application with jail superintendent concerned and the office of jail superintendent checks the 'conduct' of prisoner, sends his file along to the office of additional director general of police (jails) for sanctioning his recommendation.
After sanctioning of application, the family members of prisoners had to fill a parole bond at the office of the deputy commissioner concerned and after submitting the bond, the prisoner comes out of jails on a special leave of four weeks to six weeks.
Paroles of different kinds and periods are being given to prisoners, including for agriculture-related work, which extends to six weeks and for family function or to meet family members, which extends up to four months. In a year, he has a right to get parole twice.
{{/usCountry}}Paroles of different kinds and periods are being given to prisoners, including for agriculture-related work, which extends to six weeks and for family function or to meet family members, which extends up to four months. In a year, he has a right to get parole twice.
{{/usCountry}}Talking to Hindustan Times, Kapurthala jail superintendent Paramjit Singh Sandhu said that now, jail superintendent will directly send parole file to the DC who may or may not ask for verification from the police official concerned before sanctioning parole.
Sandhu said that they had been referring 25 to 30 parole cases to higher authorities in a month from Kapurthala jail.