NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court in its order on Friday rejected a petition challenging the repeated furlough and paroles given to Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS) Sect Chief, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who has been convicted of committing murdering a journalist, hatching a conspiracy to kill his employee and raping two of his disciples.
Ram Rahim is currently in Rohtak’s Sunaria jail, serving a 20-year jail sentence in rape cases, in which he was convicted by the Special CBI court in August 2017.
In 2019, Ram Rahim, 56, the head of the Indian social group DSS Sect, since 1990, was sentenced to life for the murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati, and in 2021, he was convicted for hatching a conspiracy to murder Ranjit Singh, a Dera manager, in 2002. And in 2017, he was convicted of raping two former Dera sadhvis in a case from 2002.
It is to be noted that despite being convicted of such heinous offences, Ram Rahim has been out of prison for a total of 131 days in the past 13 months from January 2022 to Feb 2023.
He was granted a 21-day furlough in February 2022; parole in June for 30 days and again in October for 40 days. And on 21 January, he was let out for another 40 days, the petitioner said.
The writ petition was filed before the Top Court by one Ved Prakash Vidrohi, through his lawyer. However, the top court directed Vidrohi to move to the concerned High Court for relief.
The petition sought a direction to the Central govt for the establishment of uniform guidelines for cases involving temporary release—parole or furlough—especially for repeatedly convicted prisoners serving consecutive sentences.
The petition said that Ram Rahim, a convict was granted parole and furlough on 9 different occasions in case of rape in quick succession.
"There is no provision in the Haryana Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Act, 2022 providing for temporary release in such conditions except section 1(1) providing that a convict can be released temporarily only on getting the bail in all pending cases," the petitioner pleaded to the apex court.
The two-judge Bench of the Apex Court, headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna and also comprising Justice SVN Bhatti, said, "Don't make it person-specific but make it issue-specific. Move the High Court."