Bihar prisons department on Wednesday released 14 convicts from different jails in the light of the law department’s April 24 order, while eight others, including Anand Mohan, could not be released due to procedural wrangles, officials familiar with the matter said.
Some of the prisoners, though they have completed the jail term, are yet to deposit the penalty imposed on them.
Meanwhile, on the completion of his parole period, Anand Mohan returned to Saharsa jail on Wednesday to complete the formalities for his release, which, in all likelihood, is to take place on Thursday.
The former MP, convicted for the 1994 murder of the then Gopalganj district magistrate G Krishnaiah, was on 15-day parole to attend the engagement ceremony of his legislator son Chetan Anand, and he is set to be free before the marriage on May 3.
Anand Mohan’s counsel Sangeeta Singh said the parole period ended at 11 am on Wednesday and paper formalities for his release were under way.
Anand Mohan’s release has snowballed into a major controversy, with the IAS officers’ association terming it a travesty of justice and the slain officer’s family expressing displeasure over the government’s move.
The release order turned out to be an embarrassment in case of one prisoner, Patiram Rai, who passed away last year.
The process for releases of three other prisoners lodged in special central jail, Bhagalpur, and Motihari central jail could not be taken up as they have matters related to bail in other cases pending, officials said.
Superintendent of Bhagalpur special central jail, Manoj Kumar, told HT that four prisoners have been released while process is on to release two more prisoners, whose family members could not pay fine as per direction of the court.
Similarly, Gaya central jail superintendent, Vijay Kumar Arora, said that prisoners Hriday Narayan and Ram Pravesh Sharma have been released while Surendra Sharma and Deonandan Nonia would not be released as their family members failed to pay fine. In many cases, trial court pronounced verdict of rigorous imprisonment and slapped fine against the convicted persons.
Rajiv Kumar, superintendent of Buxar central jail, said that three prisoners — Kishundeo Rai, Jitendra Singh and Rajvallabh Yadav alias Bijli — were released as per recommendations of Bihar state sentence remission board and Bihar government’s order. “Patiram Rai died last year due to illness. One Ramadhar Ram could not be released over failure of payment of fine before the court,” he said.
