The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave Mohammad Tahir Hussain, the former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor, custody parole, permitting him to stay out of jail every day for 12 hours from January 29 to February 3 to campaign for votes in the assembly elections. Hussain, an AIMIM candidate from the Mustafabad constituency, has agreed to pay for an estimated expenditure of ₹2,07,429 per day during this period.
It came while Hussain moved the court seeking interim bail in the cases pertaining to the 2020 Delhi riots. A split verdict was earlier pronounced by a two-judge bench, which had referred the matter to a three-judge bench.
Hussain’s senior counsel, Siddharth Agarwal, told the bench that he was not seeking interim bail, given the scant time left to campaign. Instead, he requested custody parole and told the court he would stay away from his old home in Karawal Nagar and would not speak about the pending cases.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol and Sandeep Mehta granted parole on conditions. Hussain can enter the AIMIM’s office and hold meetings in his constituency, but he is neither permitted to return to his original home nor to speak to the media about his cases.
The court also ordered Hussain to wire advance payments for payment of his security expenses made in two-day instalments, and the first deposit should be a pre-payment by 6 pm on Tuesday. The costs are police personnel, an escort vehicle, and a jail van required for his transit.
The bench highlighted the ‘peculiar facts and circumstances’ of the case and said Hussain’s release should fall in line with the timings indicated in the Jail manual. Once the court issues the order, it must comply with the court’s conditions but allow Hussain to participate in the election campaign.
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