New Delhi:
"It's clear that only the rich and powerful who get parole" - the Delhi High Court's furious take on Manu Sharma's controversial bail.
The court went on to slam the Delhi Police, saying "the police seems to go out of the way to favour them while those who need it the most don't get bail." The court's attack against the Delhi Police, however, is baffling, since the police had warned the Delhi government that it did not support Sharma's bail application.
Sharma, sentenced to death for killing model Jessica Lall in 1999, made headlines when he was found at a Delhi nightclub earlier this month. It then emerged that Sharma had been granted bail on the grounds that he needed to attend to his business and his ageing mother. The Delhi Police went on record to say that it had told Chief Minister these were not sufficient reasons for bail. An embarrassed chief minister defended the parole, saying Sharma had not been done any favours, but the police's statement indicated otherwise.
In what seemed to be a clear case of special treatment, the government used a no-objection certificate from the Haryana police to grant Sharma his bail.
On the same weekend that Sharma was spotted partying in Delhi, his mother, described as "ageing" in his bail application, was addressing a press conference on a cricket match that she had helped organize. As public and legal opinion swelled against the Sharmas, Manu went back to Tihar Jail voluntarily, two weeks before his bail expired.
Vinod Sharma, who has served as a Union minister, and a state minister in Haryana, is known for his close connection to Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.