Jagtar Singh Hawara Parole: Who Really Decides — Not CM, Punjab Govt or Governor. EXCLUSIVE
Jagtar Singh Hawara Parole: Documents reviewed by North Desk shows Punjab government, CM Bhagwant Mann or even strictly the governor have no authority over Jagtar Singh Hawara’s parole. So, why did the CM wrote to the governor?
Arvind Chhabra
Chandigarh, August 10
When Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann wrote to Governor Gulab Chand Kataria on August 8 favouring 10 days’ parole for Jagtar Singh Hawara — convicted in the 1995 assassination of then Chief Minister Beant Singh — the letter was read across Punjab’s political circles as a Chief Minister exercising his office on humanitarian grounds.
But official documents tell a more complicated story: neither Chief Minister Mann nor the Punjab government has any formal role in deciding this parole application at all.
Jagtar Singh Hawara Parole: The three-step chain the Court actually laid down
In fact, the High Court of Punjab and Haryana has set the record straight. Let’s get to the background first.
Jagtar Singh Hawara had sought four weeks’ parole to attend to his 81-year-old mother. He says his mother’s health is “rapidly deteriorating on account of advanced age related physical & cognitive disorders.”
Jagtar Singh Hawara had already been through one round at the Delhi High Court, which in January 2026 directed authorities to respond to his parole plea within four weeks — a deadline that came and went without a decision, forcing him back to court in Chandigarh.
The UT Chandigarh counsel put the legal position on record without ambiguity: under the Punjab Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Act, 1962, and its rules as applicable to the Union Territory, the decision on temporary release of a convict rests with “the Superintendent of the Jail, where a convict is undergoing his sentence.”
It is important to point out that after the 2004 Burail Jailbreak, Hawara has been lodged at Central Jail No. 15, Mandoli, in Delhi.
So that makes the Mandoli Jail Superintendent the deciding authority, not any office in Chandigarh or Punjab. Delhi Prisons’ own law officer, appearing in person, agreed.
The High Court final directions codify a precise three-step sequence:
- Mandoli redirects Hawara’s parole request to the Home Secretary, UT Chandigarh, within one week of the order
- UT Chandigarh submits its comments and recommendation back to Mandoli within four further weeks
- And Mandoli’s Superintendent then decides the application within two weeks after that.
Governor has no role
Jagtar Singh Hawara Parole: Nowhere in this chain does the Punjab state government, the Chief Minister’s office, or the Governor in his gubernatorial capacity appear.
The closest Punjab comes to the process is through Kataria’s second office — Administrator of UT Chandigarh — since the Home Secretary who files the recommendation reports up through that administration.
Interestingly, the Superintendent of Mandoli Jail — apparently confused by the earlier Delhi High Court direction — had earlier forwarded Hawara’s case file in February 2026 to the Additional Chief Secretary (Home Affairs), Government of Punjab, for a decision.
The Government of NCT of Delhi separately directed Tihar Jail authorities to do the same, on the reasoning that Hawara “has been convicted by the State of Punjab.”
Hawara’s senior counsel told the Court this was mistaken on every count: the communication was “erroneous,” rested on “a misunderstanding of the order of the High Court,” and reflected a “misplaced notion” that because Hawara is “an ordinary resident of Punjab,” his parole ought to be decided by Punjab’s government.
The counsel argued — and the eventual order effectively accepts, by cutting Punjab out of the final directions entirely — that the case was registered and tried in Chandigarh, so Punjab prison rules and Punjab’s government have no claim over the decision.
What that leaves Mann’s letter actually doing
Jagtar Singh Hawara Parole: Strip away the humanitarian framing and Mann’s August 8 letter sits in one of two positions, neither of which is a Chief Minister exercising jurisdiction he holds.
If the letter is addressed to Kataria in his capacity as Governor of Punjab — the framing used in Mann’s own release— then it is directed at an office the High Court has already found to have no authority over Hawara’s parole. It repeats, in political form, the identical “misplaced notion” the Court heard argued against in February: that Hawara’s Punjab connections make this Punjab’s decision.
If instead Mann is knowingly leaning on Kataria’s other hat — Administrator of UT Chandigarh, the office that actually files the recommendation Mandoli’s Superintendent will weigh — then the letter carries more logical weight, but it is still not addressed to anyone with decision-making power.
Either way, the letter is pressure applied from outside the process, not the exercise of any authority Mann actually holds.
The wider frame
Jagtar Singh Hawara Parole: Mann’s letter lands against a political backdrop that gives it weight beyond the file itself. Punjab goes to the polls early next year, and Mann has spent recent weeks fending off the “Guru Dokhi” sacrilege controversy and a viral-video row that drew opposition resignation demands.
Hawara’s case is not the only one in motion — Paramjit Singh Bheora, convicted alongside him, has a parole request that Sikh political commentary has described as hinging on “political will” rather than legal merit, and Balwant Singh Rajoana’s plea for commutation of his death sentence in the same conspiracy remains before the Supreme Court.
Whatever Mann’s letter accomplishes procedurally — and the order suggests that may be very little — its political register, arriving as it does mid-election-cycle and mid-controversy, is unmistakable.
What happens next rests entirely with an office in Sector 9’s Chandigarh Administration, not the Chief Minister’s Secretariat: if the Court’s timeline held, UT Chandigarh’s recommendation to Mandoli is due imminently, with the Jail Superintendent’s actual decision to follow within a further two weeks.
READ ALSO: Hawara Parole Plea: Why Mann’s Letter To Governor Lands At A Politically Loaded Moment
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