HC orders timely decisions on prisoners' parole pleas

The Delhi High Court has asked the city government to expeditiously decide upon prisoners' parole pleas and give reasons in cases of delays, saying that "there can be no justification for unwarranted delays."

The court said an attempt was made by the Delhi government through the Department of Home and Tihar Jail officers to explain the difficulties, causing delays in deciding several such applications.

"There can be no justification for the unwarranted delay in disposing of the applications of the convicts," a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and C Hari Shankar said.

"We, therefore, dispose of this application with a direction to the respondent (the government authorities) that it shall ensure that the schedule, as prescribed in the Parole/Furlough Guidelines, 2010, is strictly adhered to. In case of any delay, the respondent shall maintain a record of the reasons thereof," the bench added.

 

The bench gave its order on a public interest plea, complaining of delays in disposal of the convicts' applications for parole or furlough.

Delhi resident Sanjeev Kumar had moved the court saying that despite the January 2014 order of the high court to the Delhi government to decide "expeditiously" all parole/furlough applications pending before it within the time limit of three weeks specified in the Parole/Furlough Guidelines 2010, the authorities have failed to comply with it.

Advocate Ajay Verma, appearing for the petitioner, said the direction to the government have not been adhered to.

The PIL said though the authorities had framed parole/furlough guidelines, it was not adhering to the same while considering the applications resulting in unwarranted delays. Due to the delay, the purpose of the parole application are often defeated, it said.

During adjudication of Kumar's plea, the authorities had filed a status report in the court, disclosing the status of the parole applications to them and the manner in which they were examined, besides the orders passed over them.

After perusing the status report, the court said though it shows that quite a few applications were decided in accordance with the schedule stipulated in the guidelines, there were several others which were not processed within the stipulated time.