NEW DELHI: Delhi high court has granted custody parole to a Popular Front of India member booked for terror funding to attend and participate in a Fatiha ceremony in honour of his deceased mother-in-law, underlining that the right to life includes the right to observe religious duties and personal obligations.“It is a well-settled principle of law that a prisoner, whether convicted or undertrial, continues to enjoy the protection of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, save to the extent curtailed by the fact of lawful detention,” Justice Ravinder Dudeja observed recently while allowing the plea of accused Shahid Nasir.The accused had sought custody parole for three days to enable him to attend and participate in the Fatiha ceremony. Alternatively, Nasir sought release on bail to spend one week with his family. The undertrial approached the high court after the sessions court dismissed his plea on the grounds that his mother-in-law’s death had occurred about two years earlier, no prior request for such permission had been made, and no material was placed to show that his personal presence was indispensable for performing the Fatiha ceremony.
