Former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala was on Friday released from Tihar jail where he was serving a 10-year prison term in a teacher recruitment scam case.
The 86-year-old President of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) was already out on parole, but reached Tihar on Friday to complete the formalities, following which he was released.
Last month, the Delhi government had passed an order granting a six-month special remission to those who have served nine-and-half years of their 10-year prison sentence to decongest jails in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to reports, since Chautala has already served nine years and nine months of his sentence, he was eligible to get out of prison. Chautala was jailed in 2013 in connection with the teacher recruitment scam case. He was on emergency parole since March 26, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was scheduled to surrender on February 21, 2021.
As on February 21, he had two months and 27 days of jail time left which has been counted as remitted.
O P Chautala, his son Ajay Chautala, and 53 others, including IAS officer Sanjiv Kumar, were convicted and sentenced in the case of illegal recruitment of 3,206 junior basic teachers in 2000. They all were sentenced to varying jail terms in the case by a special CBI court in January 2013.
(With inputs from PTI)
