Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s Application For Temporary Release Be Considered Strictly Without Arbitrariness, Favouritism Or Discrimination: Punjab & Haryana HC

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ordered that the application of Gurmeet Ram Rahim, head of Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS) for his temporary release shall be considered strictly without arbitrariness, favouritism, or discrimination.

The Court was dealing with a writ petition filed by Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Samiti/Committee (SGPC), a statutory body constituted under the Sikh Gurudwaras Act, 1925.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Anil Kshetarpal observed, “… this Court would like to observe that in case of any application is made by respondent No.9 for temporary release, the same shall be considered strictly in accordance with the provisions of the Act of 2022 without the competent authority indulging in arbitrariness or favoritism or discrimination.”

The Bench noted that the object of the Haryana Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Act, 2022 is to grant temporary release to the prisoners for good conduct with certain conditions.

Senior Advocate P.S. Hundal represented the petitioner while Advocate General Baldev Raj Mahajan, Additional Solicitor General of India S.P. Jain, Additional Advocate General Anurag Chopra, Senior Advocates R.S. Rai, Chetan Mittal, and Sonia Mathur represented the respondents.

Facts of the Case -

The alleged public cause raised in the petition was that the State of Haryana while granting temporary release to Ram Rahim was misusing its powers under Section 11 of the 2022 Act. It was contended that Ram Rahim, who has been suffering multiple sentences including that of life for committing grave offences such as murder and rape, if released, would jeopardize the sovereignty and integrity of India and adversely affect public order.

It was further contended that he is a hardcore criminal and yet the State merely to favour him, has granted temporary release by way of parole for a period of 40 days subject to certain conditions. Besides this, another ground raised by the petitioner was that for grant of parole to Ram Rahim, the 2022 Act is inapplicable. Instead, it was submitted that Haryana Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Act, 1988 should have been applied while considering and granting parole to him.

The High Court in the above regard said, “… the Act of 2022 governs the process of conditional temporary release of prisoners for good conduct. The object of the Act of 2022 is to temporarily release the prisoners for good conduct by way of furlough/parole. The procedure for consideration of the application for release of prisoners on parole/furlough is provided in Sections 3 and 4 of the Act of 2022 which is subject to conditions and procedure stipulated in Section 11 & 12. The competent authority in case of respondent No.9 is the Divisional Commissioner of Police as per notification dated 15.06.2022 issued by the Jail Department of Government of Haryana issued in exercise of the powers under Section 2(1)(a) of the Act of 2022.”

The Court added that the applicability of 2022 Act as mentioned in Section 1(3) is confined to convicted prisoners who are confined by the orders of the Court having jurisdiction in Haryana and Ram Rahim was convicted by the Courts situated within the Haryana State.

“It is obvious that the Act of 2022 would apply to all such applications made by the prisoners seeking parole/furlough on or after 11.04.2022 when the Act of 2022 came into operation. Pertinently the applicability of the Act of 2022 cannot be relatable to any incident e.g. offence or conviction, which took place prior to the filing of an application under Section 3/4 of the Act of 2022”, it enunciated.

Furthermore, the Court said that the 2022 Act has rightly been applied by the State while considering and deciding the application of parole filed by Ram Rahim.

“Undisputedly, respondent No.9 has since surrendered and is lodged in jail. Though the State of Haryana in its response has furnished data describing various periods and the dates on which the benefit of temporary release was extended to respondent No.9 but this Court refrains from considering the justifiability of these temporary releases since the cause of challenge to Annexure P-1 has become infructuous due to the expiry of period of parole granted vide Annexure P-1”, it observed.

The Court also refused to comment upon the possibility of any breach in law & order/public orders on temporary release of Ram Rahim in the future on account that any such attempt would lead to venturing the arena of assumptions & presumptions.

Accordingly, the High Court disposed of the petition.

Cause Title- Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee v. State of Haryana and Others (Neutral Citation: 2024:PHHC:102640-DB)

Appearance:

Petitioner: Senior Advocate P.S. Hundal, Advocates Gursahib Singh Hundal, Robindeep Singh Bhullar, Jasjit Singh Brar, and Arshdeep Kaur.

Respondents: Advocate General Baldev Raj Mahajan, ASGI S.P. Jain, AAGs Anurag Chopra, Pawan Girdhar, Senior Advocates R.S. Rai, Chetan Mittal, Sonia Mathur, Senior Panel Counsel Dheeraj Jain, Sr. DAG Salil Sabhlok, Amicus Curiae Tanu Bedi, Advocates Akhil Dadwal, Pooja Dahiya, Gautam Dutt, Anurag Arora, Rubina Virmani, Radhika Mehta, Harish Chhabra, Amar D.Kamra, Mayank Aggarwal, Aman Jha, Farhad Kohli, and Jitender Khurana.

Click here to read/download the Judgment