Jaipur: Rajasthan govt and state police Monday told Rajasthan high court they will improve the parole recommendation system to ensure applications are not rejected on “mechanical or routine grounds” and that parole is denied only for justified reasons.The assurance was recorded by a division bench of Justices Mahendar Kumar Goyal and Bhuvan Goyal while hearing the parole case of Anil Kapoor.Appearing via video conferencing, Director General of Police Rajeev Sharma told the bench that about 60% of parole cases receive positive police recommendations. He admitted, however, that in around 40% of cases, negative reports were sometimes submitted on mechanical grounds.“DGP assured court that positive steps would be taken to improve the system. Negative reports will be issued only on justifiable grounds and only if the concerned SP has reasonable grounds to deny parole,” additional advocate general Rajesh Chaudhary told TOI.Additional chief secretary (Home) Bhaskar Sawant, also appearing through video conferencing, told court the state govt has begun remedial steps to streamline parole review processes. He said the Home department had issued a circular to all district magistrates and SPs, directing them to examine parole applications carefully and decide them on reasonable and legally sustainable grounds.Sawant said the circular was meant to ensure parole requests were decided fairly and to prevent litigation caused by arbitrary rejections.The assurances came after the high court recently pulled up the Bharatpur district collector and SP for rejecting a prisoner’s parole application without proper reasons.At an earlier hearing on March 6, the court said authorities were acting as if the court were a “post office”, routinely rejecting parole requests and forcing prisoners to seek judicial relief.
