Prisoner denied amnesty due to delay of one day in returning from parole
27 Jan, 2014A person was arrested in 1997 by the Kasimedu police, Chennai in connection with a murder case and was subsequently sentenced by the court for life imprisonment. He obtained a three-day parole on November 10, 2006 in order to visit his ill mother and children. The prisoner couldn’t return to the prison on the due date i.e. 14th of November due to the high fever of his children but did report at the prison in the morning next day. However, when in 2008 the state government came up with amnesty scheme for life convicts who had served at least 7 years of their sentence under which 1,405 prisoners were released prematurely, the prisoner in question was not considered because of the alleged one-day delay in his return.
However, the reply to an application filed in this regard under the Right to Information (RTI) Act revealed that there were no prison records about the alleged overstay following which the prisoner’s wife moved the Madras High Court for his release. The high court, after hearing the plea, held that not considering the prisoner for premature release on the grounds of one day delay in returning from parole is not quite justified. Hence, the court has now ordered the jail authorities to immediately release the prisoner if he is not required in the jail for any other case.