Sanjay Dutt's early release, frequent paroles were not due to state's abuse of power, rules Bombay High Court

  Bombay High Court has given a final relief to Sanjay Dutt and cleared all doubts around his reduction of sentence, frequent paroles and furloughs , and eventual release in 2016, as reported by The Hindu. [caption id=“attachment_4300315” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  Sanjay Dutt. News18[/caption] Dutt had been sentenced to six years in jail in connection with the 1993 blasts case, which was reduced to five by the Supreme Court, of which he had to serve three years and six months since he had already spent 18 months of his sentence by then. During his stay in the jail, he was granted parole for 90 days in December 2013 and for another 30 days later, on account of good conduct. This had let to allegations against him for illegality. A PIL was filed by Pradeep Bhalekar, chairperson of the Samajik Karyakarta Saurakhan Samiti, alleging that the remission granted to Dutt was wrong and illegal. Now, a Division Bench of Justice SC and Dharmadhikari and Justice Bharati Dangre have dismissed these allegations and said, “We find no illegality on the part of the State to release the actor. We found nothing contrary in the records submitted by the Home department and the explanation offered by the State government. No violations or abuse of discretionary powers were detected,” as reported by The Hindu. “Parole and furlough is not a fundamental right. But nonetheless, there are rules which place a discretionary power for its grant. And such discretion should not be misused, much less abused. To eschew all allegations of bias prejudice, we expect prison authorities and revenue officials to work hand in hand. We don’t expect them to relax rules totally or bypass them. However, all delays can be avoided given the modern technology and its ready availability. We expect the government to abide by the rules. We would expect a deviation from the rules to be an exception. It is only in compelling situations that an exception can be made and reasons have to be recorded. Nobody should gain an impression that cases are taken out of turn,” said the court and directed the state to abide by rules and maintain fairness, as reported by the  Times of India.