Prisoners on parole during the Covid-19 period will now have to return to the prison soon. The Empowered Committee constituted by the Supreme Court to deal with Covid in prisons has decided not to further increase the parole of prisoners. The process of bringing the prisoners back to the jail will start from February 17 and will be conducted in a phased manner.
A committee headed by Justice Ajay Tiwari of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has recommended that all prisoners on parole to report back to the jails. The committee also included Principal Secretary (Jail) DK Tiwari and ADGP Jail PK Sinha.
The committee is authorised to test prisoners returning from parole and place them in confinement before transferring them to their jails. A spokesperson of the process would be carried out in a phased manner, for which the ‘first out – first in’ method would be adopted.
According to the spokesperson, all the prisoners are required to submit a negative report (RT-PCR) of Covid test done within three days before reporting back to the prison. The inmates will be kept in confinement for four days (including the day of reporting back) and their Covid samples will be taken on the 5th day, after which they will be transferred to their respective jails.
If a prisoner is found positive, he will inform the Superintendent of the scheduled jail as soon as possible. A spokesman said that prisoners over 60 years of age and suffering from serious illnesses would be called in the last batch. This schedule, however, will not apply to inmates released on parole in the year 2021, who will report back to their respective special prisons when the parole expires.
