Mumbai: The Bombay High Court recently directed the Maharashtra government to devise a mechanism to ensure that any application made by a prisoner for parole is immediately forwarded to the concerned authorities so that there is no delay in deciding such applications. This comes after a prisoner’s application for emergency furlough was rejected much after the death of his relative. Moreover, the appellate authority i.e.
The Minister of State (MoS) for Home Affairs, too, delayed in deciding the appeal filed by the prisoner against the initial rejection. The bench of Justices Abhay Oka and Ajay Gadkari expressed its dissapointment with the office MoS Home Dept for failing to assign appropriate reasons for rejecting as well as delaying to decide the said applications.
Taking note of the statutory rules, the bench said that when the government by these rules has chosen to confer a right on the prisoners to apply for parole or furlough, the competent authorities which are empowered to decide the application and the appellate authorities which are empowered to decide the appeal against the initial rejection, cannot act in a casual manner.
“It is necessary for the government to devise a procedure under which as soon as an Appeal is received by the Jail Superintendent, intimation is immediately sent by the said authority to the concerned Competent Authority for immediately forwarding the prisoner’s plea for parole or furlough, to the concerned Appellate Authority,” the bench opined.
“This will curtail the delay in exercise of the Appellate power. It will be appropriate that the Appellate Authorities call upon the concerned Competent Authority to submit a record of the case by sending a communication by email,” the judges added.
While referring to the provisions of the law, the bench said that there are provisions for granting emergency parole in case of death of parental grandfather or grandmother/ father/ mother/ spouse/ son/ daughter etc. upto the period of 14 days. “The object of making this provision is to ensure that when a close relative of prisoner dies, the prisoner must get benefit of company of his other immediate family members and whenever religious practice requires, he can perform obsequies.
Therefore, in a case where the Application for emergency (or any other form of) parole is rejected, the Appellate Authority namely the MoS, Home Affairs, is expected to decide the appeal immediately and preferably within a period of three working days,” the judges said.
