The High Court of Karnataka has directed the Director-General and Inspector General of Police to examine the issue of the jurisdictional police submitting a “mechanical and identically worded” reports to the prison authorities whenever their opinion is sought before granting parole to a convict or an under-trial prisoner.
Pointing out that the High Court is coming across several of these police reports, which are “identically worded, without any application of the mind,” Justice Suraj Govindaraj asked the DG&IGP to instruct police officers appropriately, if necessary, to provide training to all the officers concerned on parole related information in terms of the provisions in the Karnataka Prison Manual.
The court issued the direction while partly allowing a petition filed by 62-year-old Chotti Bee of Bidar seeking a direction to release her son, Saddam, a convict in a murder case, on parole for 90 days to take care of her as she is ill. Though the Belagavi prison authorities had initially approved her plea for releasing him on parole, they granted parole based on the report submitted by the jurisdictional police.
On perusing the police report, the court found that it is one of those mechanically worded reports without any application of mind.
“The grant of parole is a valuable right of a convict, which would also be a right under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, and as such, it would be required for the concerned authorities to apply their mind appropriately and pass a reasoned order on a case-to-case basis, rather than reproducing the same grounds in all the reports which are submitted,” the court observed.
Pointing out the objective purpose of the grant of parole, which includes enabling a prisoner to maintain continuity with their family members, the court said that there is a requirement to apply the mind while considering an application for parole, as there are well-laid-down principles in the prison manual on the object and reasons for grant of parole.
The court directed the prison authorities to release the petitioner’s son on parole for 60 days while directing him to mark his attendance one a week with the jurisdictional police.
Published – August 21, 2025 09:50 pm IST
