SC refuses to stay order granting parole to MP

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to interfere with the Allahabad high court order that granted two-day parole to BSP leader Atul Rai for taking oath as a Member of Parliament in Delhi.

Rai, who had won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the Ghosi constituency in UP on a BSP ticket, is in jail in a rape case and has not yet been able to take oath as an MP because his bail plea was earlier denied by the high court. A bench of justice DY Chandrachud and justice Hemant Gupta dismissed the appeal filed by the complainant in the case who had challenged the high court’s January 23 order.

Advocate Rajeev Ranjan, appearing for Rai, opposed the appeal. The high court had granted him two-day parole and ordered that Rai would go to Delhi in police custody for taking oath as a member of the Lok Sabha on January 31 during the Budget Session.

The high court had ordered that thereafter police would produce him before the trial court concerned on February 1 for sending him back to judicial custody.

An FIR was registered against Rai on May 1 on a complaint by a college student who had alleged that he took her home on the pretext of meeting his wife but sexually assaulted her.

Rai has denied the allegations levelled against him.

In May last year, the top court had refused to grant him protection from arrest in the case while noting that 16 other criminal cases were pending against him at that time.