Ordering urgent release of 76-year-old ill convict, Rajasthan High Court says such confinement is ‘antithetical to dignity’

‘Constellation of disorders’

• The petitioner, Ramdin, currently serving his sentence at the Central Jail Jodhpur, moved the court through his son seeking extraordinary relief.
• The prayer for parole was based on a “constellation of serious cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic disorders”.
• According to medical records from the jail dispensary, the septuagenarian suffers from Coronary Artery Disease (CAD), Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS), Grade IV left varicocele (vein enlargement), renal parenchymal disease (kidney ailment), and Type II Diabetes Mellitus.
• Appearing for the petitioner, advocate K R Bhati submitted that the convict is aged about 76 years, whose fragile health and advanced age render him particularly vulnerable.
• It is contended that the ailments afflicting him are chronic, progressive, and potentially life-threatening, requiring specialised medical supervision and emotional support from family members.
• He urged that, in consonance with the applicable parole rules and humanitarian considerations underlying the correctional jurisprudence, the petitioner deserves to be enlarged on emergent parole.

‘Reformative, humanitarian considerations’

• The court cannot remain oblivious to the manifestly precarious and enfeebled medical condition of the convict–petitioner.
• The ailments enumerated are neither trivial nor transient; rather, they disclose a constellation of serious cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic disorders that, particularly in a person of advanced age, assume alarming proportions.
• The object of parole, though regulatory in nature, is equally imbued with reformative and humanitarian considerations.
• The court persuaded that the ends of justice would be subserved by extending to the convict the beneficent dispensation of emergent parole.