Srinagar, Nov 27: The Jammu & Kashmir government has authorised director general of police (prisons) to extend special parole of convicts by eight more weeks if the COVID-19 pandemic situation in the UT does not improve or further worsens.
According to an order issued by Home department of J&K Union Territory, a copy of which is in possession of news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), DGP Prisons has been empowered to further extend parole by eight more weeks.
“In exercise of the powers conferred under sub-section (5) of section 432 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. 1973 and in continuation of the Government Order No. 1OO-Home of 2020 dated 02-04-2020 and Government Order No. 154-Home of 2020 dated 29-07-2020. sanction is hereby accorded to the authorization of the Director General of Police (Prisons), J&K, being the competent Authority under the Jammu and Kashmir Suspension of Sentence Rules, 2020. notified vide S.0-114 dated 29-03-2020, to grant special parole for another eight weeks, in respect of categories of convict prisoners mentioned in the order ibid, extendable for further eight weeks, If the COVID-19 pandemic situation in the UT of JK does not improve or further worsens. subject to the conditions laid dawn in Government Order No. 1OO-Home of 2020 dated 02-04-2020,” reads the order, a copy of which lies with the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO).
On April 1, a three-member high-powered committee, headed by J&K state legal services authority, executive chairman Justice Rajesh Bindal, and having principal secretary (Home) Shaleen Kabra and DGP (Prisons) V K Singh as its members, passed directions for the release of jail inmates, except those involved in militancy-related cases to decongest the prisons in the Union Territory.
