Chandigarh, July 10 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the Chandigarh administration to send its recommendations regarding parole application from Babbar Khalsa militant Jagtar Singh Hawara within four weeks. The high court bench of justice Vinod S Bhardwaj acted on the plea from Hawara seeking directions to authorities to release him on parole for a period of four weeks to enable him to attend to his ailing 81-year-old mother, whose health, according to the plea, is stated to be rapidly deteriorating on account of advanced age-related physical and cognitive disorders. Hawara, a convict in the 1995 assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, is serving imprisonment for the rest of his life at Delhi's Mandoli jail. Since the crime was committed in Chandigarh and the trial was held here, the parole proposal requires clearance from the Chandigarh administration. His counsel had told the court that there were a total of 36 criminal case registered against him. Out of these, the petitioner was convicted in a total of seven cases and had already undergone the entire sentence in six cases, and serving his sentence in the former CM's assassination case. In the remaining 29 cases, the petitioner has either been acquitted or discharged or the petitions stand disposed of, he had told court, adding that for 29 years he had been in custody and was never granted parole. An application was submitted in June 2025. However, it remains undecided. The counsel for Chandigarh administration had told the court that as per the provisions of the Punjab Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Act, 1962, as applicable to the Chandigarh, a decision with respect to the temporary release of a convict is to be taken by the superintendent of the jail, where a convict is undergoing his sentence. An officer from Delhi prisons department had submitted that the department would submit the request of the petitioner for grant of prole to the Chandigarh administration and an appropriate decision would be taken based on recommendation of UT administration. Now, the court has disposed of the plea with the directions that superintendent, Mandoli jail, would forward the request of the petitioner to the UT administration within one week and thereafter, UT will submit its recommendations within four weeks. htc...