Parole Plea of Dera Sacha Sauda Chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Rejected

Chandigarh: The parole plea of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is lodged in a Rohtak jail for raping his two disciples, was rejected on Friday.

The dera chief had applied for it to attend to his ailing mother.

The plea was found invalid by Sunaria Jail Superintendent Sunil Sangwan on the basis of a report of the Sirsa deputy commissioner, who took into account the security considerations and the opinion of the board of doctors who examined the dera chief's mother.

Sirsa Civil Surgeon Govind Gupta had examined the dera chief's mother Naseeb Kaur (83).

The Sirsa district administration had sent the medical report of the dera chief's mother to Sunil Sangwan on Thursday.

When contacted, Sangwan refused to comment on the matter, saying he was not authorised to do so.

Commenting on it, Rohtak Division Commissioner Pankaj Yadav said the jail superintendent didn't find any valid ground for the parole plea.

"The ground on which parole was sought is not valid," he said.

The dera chief's wife Harjit Kaur had on August 5 filed a plea in the Punjab and Haryana high court, seeking a three-week parole on the grounds that Ram Rahim's mother was scheduled to undergo treatment for a heart-related ailment.

"My mother-in-law wants her son to remain present during her treatment," she had stated in the application.

The court then directed the jail authorities to take a decision regarding the parole within five days.

The High Court had directed the respondents that if the jail superintendent was satisfied that the dera chief's case was covered under the Haryana Good Conduct Prisoners Temporary Release Act, then he can decide on the plea within the time frame fixed by the jail department or he can forward the case to the authorities concerned after recording reasons, if dissatisfied with the plea.

In June, the Dera Sacha Sauda chief had applied for a 42-day parole for farming in his fields in Sirsa.

Later, he withdrew the application.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was convicted in two rape cases by a Panchkula court in August 2017.

In January this year, a special CBI court in Panchkula sentenced him and three others to life imprisonment for the murder of a journalist over 16 years ago.