30-day parole to actor Sanjay Dutt raises questions

A 30-day parole for actor Sanjay Dutt, granted months after the grounds cited ceased to be relevant, has left legal experts wondering whether prison authorities are applying their mind in taking a call on such requests.

Parole for the actor came just days after the arrest of a terror financing convict who jumped furlough in Nashik following a similar escape by his associate seven months earlier. Law prohibits furlough in terror cases.

Lodged in Pune's Yerwada jail, Dutt had applied for parole on March 26 for his daughter's surgery in April, but came out on parole on August 26.

Furlough is discretionary leave that convicts are allowed to enable re-integration with society upon their final release. It requires no specific reason. But parole is leave granted for a specific reason. It is not counted towards days served in prison, unlike furlough.

The jail manual requires a plea for parole to be processed within 45 days after it is made. The convict files and sends a parole plea to the jail superintendent, who forwards it to the divisional commissioner. The decision includes seeking a police report and communicating approval or rejection to the convict.

Delay in decision-making raises pertinent questions about whether prison authorities apply their mind, said a lawyer. Many lawyers say while the delay has come to light in Dutt's case, many applications remain pending for months, unnoticed and forgotten. "The rule book must be followed strictly as the high court has ruled in several cases," said advocate Farhana Shah, who has represented many convicts whose parole pleas were not decided for months. She said while Dutt's leave was "rightly granted", though delayed, the "same consideration" should be made for other inmates whose pleas are later rejected on the grounds that the reasons are no longer relevant. "If a parole plea is decided, for instance, after the marriage of the child of a convicted prisoner (for which leave was sought), it would defeat the very purpose," she said.

"If a plea is not decided in time, an extension plea would be rendered meaningless," said another lawyer, adding that even for furlough, the authorities are expected to verify the convict's conduct and record and only then grant leave.