Delhi HC dismisses OP Chautala's parole plea, former Haryana CM has to surrender on 8 January

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a plea of INLD chief OP Chautala, serving a ten-year jail term in teachers recruitment scam case, to extend his parole to look after his ailing wife. The 82-year-old former Haryana chief minister will have to surrender on 8 January, when his parole is due to expire. Justice Mukta Gupta refused to extend the relief granted to Chautala on 22 December, 2017, saying there were other family members to look after his wife, admitted in a hospital, and he should reserve it for a better time. “At this stage, the court does not see any ground to extend the parole. The application is dismissed,” the court said, adding that Chautala has been able to oversee improvement in the health of his wife and he cannot get parole for an indefinite period for this purpose. [caption id=“attachment_4289171” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Om Prakash Chautala. AFP[/caption] Senior advocate Sudhir Nandrajog and advocate Amit Sahni, appearing for Chautala, sought extension of parole by four weeks on the grounds that his wife was now admitted in Medanta Medicity Hospital in Gurgaon and he wanted to look after her. Sensing the mood of the court which was not inclined to grant the relief, the counsel urged it to extend the parole by a week but the prayer was declined. The court had on 22 December last year granted a two-week parole to Chautala and restrained him from being involving in any other activity. It had also stopped him from moving out of Sirsa where his wife was earlier admitted in a hospital. In the petition, the leader had said that his wife Sneh Lata was critically ill and was hospitalised at Sirsa in Haryana and that he wanted to spend time with his wife “in her last days”. Delhi police standing counsel Rahul Mehra had opposed his parole plea, saying the court had earlier cancelled Chautala’s parole and furlough on the grounds that he was attending political rallies. Chautala, his son Ajay Chautala and three others are serving a 10-year jail term in the case. The Supreme Court in August 2015 had dismissed Chautalas’ appeals against the high court verdict upholding their conviction and sentence of 10 years jail term awarded by a trial court in the junior basic trained teachers recruitment scam case. The father-son duo and 53 others, including two IAS officers, were among 55 persons convicted on 16 January, 2013 by the trial court for illegally recruiting 3,206 JBT teachers in Haryana in 2000.