Commissioner to probe officials for misleading HC on Sharma parole

Referring to the noting in the status report filed by the ACP,New Delhi,that there is no possibility of Sharma jumping the parole,Justice Hima Kohli said,”It is quite apparent that all is not well within the department and the letter dated April 5 has been tailor-made”.

“In the face of negative report of GNCT of Delhi,the court has expressed its surprise and directed the counsel for state to inform the court as to the basis on which the observation was made by the ACP,” the court said and sought an action taken report within six weeks.

It asked the city Police Commissioner to conduct a probe against the officials concerned for misleading the court.

Sharma’s plea for parole was rejected by the Lieutenant General in June. He had then approached the High Court challenging the rejection.

Pursuing the court’s notice,police had last month filed a status report and annexed the file noting of the ACP to the Tihar Jail Superintendent with an observation that there was no possibility of parole jumping by the convict.

The court order came while granting a seven-hour custody parole to Sharma to attend to his ailing mother.

Sharma was allowed to visit his mother in police custody between 10 am and 5 pm a week before her angiography was done at the Jaipur Golden Hospital.

Filing the petition,he had sought the court’s direction to set aside the Ministry of Home and NCT government’s dismissal of his application for parole.

Sharma said he had been in custody for the past 15 years and was not able to attend to his parents who are old and suffering from various ailments.

He said his mother,68,recently suffered a heart attack and his father,76,suffers from old age-related problems.

On February 17,2007,the Delhi High Court had upheld the trial court’s judgement of 2003,awarding death sentence to Sharma for killing his wife Naina Sahani,former general secretary of Delhi Mahila Congress,in 1995.

Sharma had killed Sahani,cut her body into pieces and then tried to burn them in a tandoor in a restaurant on Ashoka Road. It is commonly referred to as the ‘tandoor case’.