Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: The controversy surrounding the parole given to model Jessica Lall's murderer Manu Sharma is refusing to die down. Reports claimed on Thursday that the Sheila government went ahead with parole despite opposition from the Delhi Police.
As per a newspaper report, the police had clearly objected to the plea after it found that none of the reasons cited by Manu Sharma in his application for three-month parole were valid.
The police came to this conclusion after its sleuths, on the request of state Home Department, conducted an inquiry into Manu's affairs.
The police looked into the three aspects pertaining to his request, specifically the grounds on which he was seeking such a long parole.
Manu had given three reasons. One he wanted to attend religious rites for his grandmother Rajrani Sharma, who had passed away in 2008, but as per the report the Delhi Police didn’t find a pressing need for rituals at this juncture.
Secondly, Manu had said that he wants parole to take care of his ageing mother. He had also claimed that she was suffering from hypertension and arthritis. But here too, the police found that there was no documentary evidence to substantiate their claim.
Thirdly, Manu’s application had claimed that his business was suffering and hence he needed to get things in order. However, during investigation, police found that his business was not badly suffering in his absence.
However, as it is evident now, the Delhi government disregarded the police's negative report and went by a report presented by the Chandigarh police which, strangely enough, cleared the request despite the grounds being the same.
It's not clear why the Delhi government decided to disregard the opinion of its state police and instead seek the opinion of the police force of Chandigarh – Manu’s home turf.
When questioned by the reporters, Delhi Principal Secretary (Home) G S Patnaik said, “You can ask any legal expert about which formality was over-looked in granting parole...there are no hard and fast rules in granting paroles.”
However, in a sudden shift of stance the Delhi government has partially conceded that it was approached by Delhi Police opposing parole to Jessica Lal’s convicted killer.
The government further said that the officials of Delhi Police approached it on Monday and not on Saturday.
The government also cautioned that Delhi Police should have approached it instead of media raising the issue.
It is believed that the Delhi government went through the whole process in a week. It sought Delhi Police's opinion on September 12 and in less than a week, Manu was granted parole, on September 18.
First Published: Thursday, November 12, 2009, 15:11