Team Herald
PANJIM: Considering that the Prisons Department has been rejecting several applications for furlough and parole, the High Court of Bombay at Goa has sought details of temporary release of the prisoners ever since Rajendra Mirajkar has assumed the charge as Inspector General of Prisons.
The division bench of Justices Mahesh Sonak and Nutan Sardessai has expressed disappointment over the “mechanical rejection” of the applications. “Taking into consideration the manner in which Rajendra Mirajkar, IGP has been mechanically rejecting the applications for parole and furlough, we direct Mirajkar to file an affidavit in this Court within two weeks on: the date on which he assumed the charge of IGP, details/statistics of the applications for parole/furlough entertained by him from the date of his assuming the charge and the details/statistics of the parole/furlough granted by him and rejected by him during his tenure,” the bench stated.
The directions come in response to a criminal writ petition filed by convict Nagesh Gaonkar who sought court’s intervention into the matter.
The bench observed that prima facie it found that IGP is shirking the responsibility by virtually abdicating his discretion to the dictates of the Superintendent of Police. “Again, we find that even the reports of the SP are issued in mechanical manner, which again, are prima facie indicative of shirking of responsibility. The circumstance that the prisoners have been released in past on several occasions on parole or furlough and they have neither absconded nor breached any of the terms of conditions of parole or furlough are completely ignored and applications are routinely rejected on the alleged basis that there is possibility of abscondence,” it said.
