Furlough in India
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Furlough (discretionary leave) for convicts
What the rules say
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See graphic, 'What does Furlough mean in the context of Indian prisoners? What is Sec 498-A of the IPC (Cruelty to the wife)'
The Times of India, Sep 02 2015
Swati Deshpande
30-day parole to Dutt raises questions
Experts wonder whether jail authorities applied their mind in deciding his plea
Furlough is discretionary leave that convicts are allowed to enable re-integration with society upon their final release. It requires no specific reason. But parole is leave granted for a specific reason. It is not counted towards days served in prison, unlike furlough.
The jail manual requires a plea for parole to be processed within 45 days after it is made.The convict files and sends a parole plea to the jail superintendent, who forwards it to the divisional commissioner.The decision includes seeking a police report and communicating approval or rejection to the convict.
Delay in decision-making raises pertinent questions about whether prison authorities apply their mind, said a lawyer. Many lawyers say while the delay has come to light in Dutt's case, many applications remain pending for months, unnoticed and forgotten. “The rule book must be followed strictly as the high court has ruled in several cases,“ said advocate Farhana Shah, who has represented many convicts whose parole pleas were not decided for months. She said while Dutt's leave was “rightly granted“, though delayed, the “same consideration“ should be made for other inmates whose pleas are later rejected on the grounds that the reasons are no longer relevant. “If a parole plea is decided, for instance, after the marriage of the child of a convicted prisoner (for which leave was sought), it would defeat the very purpose,“ she said.
“If a plea is not decided in time, an extension plea would be rendered meaningless,“ said another lawyer, adding that even for furlough, the authorities are expected to verify the convict's conduct and record and only then grant leave.
Even convicts in jail for life can get furlough: SC
AmitAnand Choudhary, April 30, 2022: The Times of India
New Delhi: The Supreme Court ruled that furlough could not be denied to a convict who has been sentenced to remain in jail for his entire life without remission and such prisoners could not be deprived of their rights emanating from good jail conduct.
Furlough means release of aprisoner for a short period of time after a gap of certain qualified numbers of years of incarceration by way of motivation for maintaining good conduct and to remain disciplined in the prison. This is purely an incentive for good conduct in the prison. The period spent by the prisoner outside the prison on furlough shall be counted towards his sentence.
Setting aside the verdict of the Delhi HC which held that a prisoner condemned to live his entire life in jail was not entitled for furlough, a bench of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Aniruddha Bose said even if the person is otherwise not to get any remission and has to remain in prison for whole of the reminder of his natural life, that does not, as a corollary, means that his right to seek furlough is foreclosed. The court passed the plea of a convict seeking direction that his plea for furlough be considered.
SC: Double-murder convict not entitled to furlough extension
May 21, 2024: The Times of India
New Delhi : Supreme Court has set aside the relief granted to a double-murder convict who had concealed from the court that he was not entitled to be considered for remission before 30 years of rigorous imprisonment.
The bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjay Bhuyan passed the order last week but made it available Monday. They said the earlier order in favour of convict Jitender will “no longer operate”.
The earlier order had exempted Jitender from surrendering despite the end of his furlough granted by jail authorities. Jitender had said that his plea for early release or remission had not been heard by Delhi’s sentence review board and hence, his furlough should be extended. He concealed from the court that he was ineligible for such relief as he had not completed 30 years of rigorous imprisonment.
The apex court, in the fresh order, issued a notice to Jitender to explain his conduct of hiding crucial facts from it and securing an order for which he was not eligible.
The court’s latest order makes the convict liable to be arrested immediately or he must surrender in Tihar. The court was hearing a plea for recall of its earlier order by the kin of a victim who pointed out that Jitender, who had once escaped from Tihar, stands sentenced to a life term with a 30-year cap on remission for committing two murders in a span of a few hours.
The plea pointed out that Jitender took undue advantage of a blanket court order granting relief to all those convicts out on furlough, who sought to be considered for early release by the sentence review board. The relative of one of the victims said the convict got relief “by fraud” and did not disclose that he was handed life imprisonment with the 30-year cap without remission by the apex court in 2018.
On March 10, 1999, Jitender stormed into a wedding reception in north Delhi and shot dead Anil Bhadana, the then president of Satyawati College Students’ Union, because Bhadana was about to depose against him in a criminal case. The same night, Jitender went to the house of Sumit Nayyar, an eyewitness who had informed police about Bhadana’s murder, and pumped three bullets into his father’s chest, killing him on the spot.
Being young and unmarried cannot be reason to deny furlough: HC
Aug 10, 2024: The Times of India
Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court has ruled that convicts cannot be denied furlough or parole simply because they are young and unmarried, reports Vaibhav Ganjapure.
The assumption that an unmarried prisoner was more likely to abscond was baseless and unfair, a division bench comprising justices Vibha Kankanwadi and Vrushali Joshi said, directing Nagpur jail officials to reconsider the case of a murder convict who had been denied leave to visit his family.
Prahlad Gupta, of Maharajganj in UP, is currently serving triple life sentences in Nagpur Central Jail, and had applied for 28 days’ furlough to spend time with his family. “The petitioner’s application for furlough was rejected only on grounds that he is 26 and still unmarried, and therefore, the possibility of his fleeing cannot be ruled out. We do not consider this to be a good ground,” stated the bench. “Even if police authority gave an adverse report, the sanctioning authority must consider the overall situation… Special IG (prisons) cannot accept the report of the police blindly,” it added.
Court judgements
Overstayal in the past cannot be reason to deny furlough: HC
Vaibhav Ganjapure, August 5, 2025: The Times of India
Nagpur: In a ruling underscoring the rehabilitative purpose of furlough, Nagpur bench of Bombay high court quashed prison department’s refusal to grant leave to a life convict, stating that past overstays on furlough (leave of absence for a specified period to a convict from prison) cannot permanently disqualify a prisoner from exercising the right to temporary release.
A division bench comprising Justices Anil Pansare and Mahendra Nerlikar was hearing a plea filed by Shankar Landge, a 38year-old serving life imprisonment at Nagpur Central Jail, following his conviction by a Wardha court on murder charges in 2010.
“The very object of the furlough is reformation and social integration and, therefore, if it is denied for years together, it would frustrate the purpose of incorporation of provisions in the rules,” the bench stated in its order last week. The judges said the jail superintendent also lost sight of the fact that since 2014, the petitioner had not been granted furlough. “Merely because he overstayed on earlier occasions, that by itself does not disqualify the petitioner from the grant of furlough leave,” the HC ruled. The petitioner’s furlough request was rejected on
March 22 by DIG (Prisons), Nagpur, citing multiple instances of overstay between 2010 and 2014. Landge challenged the decision in high court. Opposing his plea, public prosecutor S Thakur informed the bench that the convict had overstayed his release by 18 days in 2010, 88 days in 2011, 265 days in 2013 and 56 days in 2014.
The court, however, noted that Landge had not been granted furlough since Nov 18, 2014. His counsel argued that the past overstays — now over a decade old — should not weigh against him indefinitely. The petitioner also gave an undertaking that he would diligently perform his allotted prison duties, addressing another concern flagged by the prison authorities.
Allowing the petition, the court directed Landge to be released on furlough for the period he had applied for, on terms and conditions deemed appropriate by the prison authorities.
