On Monday, the Apex Court took up the issue of grant of temporary leave, or furlough, to convicts who have been sentenced to imprisonment till their death in heinous crimes while granting interim bail to one such convict lodged in Yamuna Nagar prison of Haryana for eleven years, last four years of which are without furlough.
A bench of Justices L N Rao and Vineet Saran granted interim bail of 6 weeks to murder convict Gaurav Rana, who was found guilty of brutally killing a person by pumping several rounds of bullets into him. The trial court had sentenced him to life imprisonment with the caveat that he would not be released till his death. The High Court of Punjab and Haryana had upheld the order & the appeal against it is pending in Supreme Court.
Rana's lawyer Dhruv Gautam said that for the last 4 years he had not been permitted to go out of the prison for even a day & that he could not even apply for remission of sentence. Appearing for haryana, additional advocate general Alka Agrawal said that the superintendent of the prison had rejected the furlough application in view of the Trial Court & High Court order sentencing the convict to life imprisonment till his death.
Agrawal said under the 'Haryana Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Act, 1988', Rana cannot be released on parole or furlough.
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