The Bombay High Court will hear an application for parole moved by a 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict who is serving a life term at Nashik Central Prison. Karimullah Khan has sought parole to attend his wife’s death anniversary.
On Thursday, Khan’s lawyer Farhana Shah told a division bench of Justice A S Oka and Justice A S Gadkari that Khan’s wife Umarjahan Karimullah had died on December 28, 2017. Emergency parole to attend the funeral had been rejected by the jail superintendent. Khan had then moved the Bombay High Court, but the court rejected the petition in December last year since it was too late for Khan to attend the funeral.
The court directed that any fresh application pending with the superintendent should be disposed of as expeditiously as possible, or within a week.
Khan’s lawyer on Thursday told the bench that she had also sent a letter, along with a copy of the court order, to the superintendent, urging him to consider Khan’s release on parole for his wife’s first death anniversary, but no reply had been received.
Shah said the superintendent did not accept their application on the grounds that there was no provision for the same, leading them to approach the court.
An affidavit was filed by Rajkumar Sali, superintendent of Nashik Jail, which said that after considering the police report and the Bombay Parole and Furlough Rules, the application was rejected on December 25, 2018. The affidavit also said that as per a May 2000 circular, a convicted prisoner’s application for emergency parole can be considered if death of the relative has occurred within 10 days before the submission of application.
The affidavit further states that as per the circular, if the convict prisoner belongs to Muslim and Christian community, his application can further be considered for the 40th/90th day rituals.
