In an initiative taken after the lone convict jumped parole in the Pallavi Purkayastha murder case, the Maharashtra Government has decided to put on hold all applications seeking parole, till it formulates a new set of rules for release of prisoners on parole and furlough.
Informed State Home Ministry sources said here on Wednesday that no convict would be released on parole till the new set of rules were not formulated. "We are in the process of finalising the new set of rules for release of prisoners on parole and furlough. We expect to formalise the new rules sometime next week. Till then, we have decided to keep on hold all parole requests from prisoners," a senior State Home ministry official said.
However, the official said that in cases of emergency like the death of near and dear ones, the State Home department would make an exception.
The State Government's decision to formulate new set of rules for release of prisoners on parole and furlough comes in the wake of the acute embarrassment it faced in the Pallavi Purkayastha murder case, in which Ahmed Mughal alias Pathan, the lone convict serving life sentence, jumped parole.
It may be recalled that the Maharashtra government had in the last week on June this year had ordered the suspension of then prison superintendent of Nashik prison Nashik's then jail superintendent J S Naik for recommending parole to Mughal.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who holds the State Home portfolio, had ordered suspension of Naik based on an inquiry report submitted by Deputy Inspector General (Jails) Rajendra Dhamne. In his report, Dhamne had said that Naik had committed "a grave error" by recommending parole to Mughal.
Naik, who had taken over as the superintendent of Amravati jail some time June, currently faces a departmental inquiry for granting furlough to two persons convicted in terrorism related charges and had escaped while out on leave.
In both the cases, the convicts who had been granted furlough, did not return to jail on the expiry of their furlough. Incidentally, under the amended rules of the Maharashtra Prison Rules, terror convicts were not entitled to avail furlough during their prison term.
Pallavi, daughter of a senior New Delhi-based IAS officer Atanu Purkayastha, was brutally murdered by Mughal, a security guard working at a high-rise building "Himalayan Heights" at Wadala in north-central Mumbai, after she after she resisted his attempt to rape her in her 16th floor flat at Wadala here on August 9, 2012.
Apart from slitting Pallavi's throat, Mughal had stabbed her in face, chest, cheeks and both the hands, with knife that he had carried with him when he stealthily entered into her flat using a key that he had stolen from the flat when he visited the flat along with an electrician to restore power in an hour earlier.
Following a recommendation by Naik On February 24, 2016, Divisional Commissioner Eknath Dawle had granted Mughal parole to Mughal on the ground that the latter's mother was sick.
However, Mughal jumped parole after his request for extension was rejected by the jail authorities in March this year.