Chautala finishes prison term early; was out on parole
NEW DELHI: Former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, sentenced in 2013 in a corruption case, has completed his prison term two months before he was supposed to on account of a special remission granted to around 20 convicts who have less than six months remaining in their jail term, people familiar with the matter said.
Chautala has been out on parole since March 26 last year, when Tihar jail authorities released 1,000 prisoners on parole to decongest prisons in view of the Covid pandemic.
Prison officials said Chautala did not return to Tihar in February this year, unlike the others released with him, citing medical grounds.
The 86-year-old veteran politician, who continued to head the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) through his prison term, was admitted to a Gurugram hospital and moved the Delhi high court for an extension of his parole.
“It was extended twice by the HC,” said a prison official on condition of anonymity.
But Chautala will have to come to prison once to complete the formalities of his release.
“He will be a free man. Since the former chief minister is on parole, he will have to surrender before the prison authorities for completing formalities,” Chautala’s lawyer Amit Sahni said.
Tihar prison’s director-general Sandeep Goel said Chautala will be released because he has less than three months jail sentence to go, which would be counted as remission. An e-mail sent to his lawyer said he would have to formally surrender to complete the formalities.
Officials said his son Ajay Chautala, however, did not qualify for special remission because he still has to serve about seven to eight months.
Chautala, his son Ajay, 60, and 53 others were convicted on January 13, 2013, by a Delhi court for illegally recruiting 3,206 basic teachers in Haryana in 1999-2000 when the INLD chief was the chief minister. The Central Bureau of Investigation was ordered to probe the case by the Supreme Court on a petition filed by IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar, who accused Chautala of taking bribes to recruit teachers, and said he was forced to change the list of selected candidates.
Chautala has been released on parole in the past, too, between July 5 and October 8, 2019, on different grounds such as his grandson’s engagement and wedding, and his wife’s death. His party, the INLD, hopes his presence will change the outfit’s fortunes, and called it a historic day for Haryana.
“He will continue to fight for the farmers and labourers’ plight. He will reach out to workers across the state once he is discharged from Medanta hospital,” said INLD’s state president Nafe Singh Rathee.
A family feud led to OP Chautala’s son Ajay Chautala to walk out of the party and form the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) with his sons Dushyant and Digvijay Chautala in December 2018.
Dushyant’s JJP won 10 seats in the 2019 assembly polls and he has been serving as deputy chief minister in Haryana’s coalition government led by Manohar Lal Khattar of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
OP Chautala’s INLD was confined to only seat, which was won by his son Abhay Singh Chautala from Ellenabad seat in Sirsa. Abhay resigned from the assembly in January this year in support of farmers protesting against three farm laws.