New Delhi, Apr 23 (PTI) The Delhi High Court has said only because a convict spent over 20 years in jail, it did not reduce him to a “chattel” and granted him parole.

Justice Neena Bansal Krishna said it could not be overlooked that he spent over two decades in jail, perhaps, for a crime he committed.

“But that does not denude him of his basic right to life. Merely because he is confined to jail, (it) does not reduce his status to that of a chattel, bereft of any basic fundamental human rights. It is high time that the jail authorities demonstrate a little more sensitivity in dealing with such matters,” the court verdict of April 16 said.

The murder and rape convict moved the high court with a plea of parole for four weeks.

Hearing his case, the judge called for a “little more sensitivity” by the jail authority and noted he had attempted suicide in 2022.

The court released the convict on parole for the desired period but expected a “little more effort” on the part of the jail authority to verify his grounds for the reprieve instead of terming it as generic.

The lifer belonged to the poor strata and wanted parole for maintaining social and family ties, the court observed.

Parole also helped establish social ties, it noted.

The “most glaring aspect” the court said was the fact that he filed the plea in November 2024, but it remained undecided within the mandated one-month period and the jail authority rejected it “that too in the most arbitrary way” only after he moved the high court and a notice was issued.

“The jail authorities must be aware and conscious that an attempt to suicide reflects a mental condition; rather it should have rung the alarm bell that the convict needs to maintain the social ties for his mental health. Instead of appreciating his mental condition, to treat the same as a crime and to issue a ‘warning’, reflects again the scant understanding of the jail administration regarding the plight of the petitioner,” it said.

Aside from a late surrender after an emergency parole during COVID-19 pandemic, the court pointed out, the nominal roll (a record of details of each inmate) did not show any new unsatisfactory conduct.

It was “indeed a very unhappy situation” where time and again he was being pushed to approach the court for grant of parole, it added.

The court referred to its previous ruling that said a late surrender during the pandemic could not be considered as a valid grounds for denying parole and found the insistence on using it as a ground to reject parole again “neither warranted nor appreciated”.

The court cautioned the jail authorities against rejecting pleas for parole and furloughs repeatedly on the same grounds, directing them to be conscious of orders.

“Once a judicial mind has been disclosed in any order about the validity of any ground for rejection or non-rejection of the parole/furlough application, the same should be more judiciously and scrupulously adhered to by the jail authorities,” it said. PTI ADS ADS AMK AMK