File pictures of Manu Sharma and Jessica Lal

New Delhi, Nov. 9: A fatal shot in a pub one night ten years ago sent him to jail for murder. Now Manu Sharma’s love for the nightlife has again landed him — as well as the Delhi government — in a soup.

Sharma, out on parole from Tihar Jail since September 22 on grounds that his mother was seriously ill and he had to attend to family business matters, was spotted partying in LAP, a posh city night club, last Friday.

Yesterday, his supposedly ailing mother, Shakti Rani Sharma, was at a news conference in Chandigarh to kick off an under-19 cricket tournament.

Shakti Sharma is general secretary of the Chandigarh Women’s Cricket Association.

A source in Delhi police said Sharma had got into a brawl at the pub and police had been called in after some people recognised him. But by the time the police reached, Sharma had left.

Lawyers today questioned the grounds for the parole to the “influential” Sharma, who was handed a life term for the April 1999 murder of model Jessica Lal at a Delhi pub. Lal, a celebrity bartender at Tamarind Court restaurant, had allegedly refused to serve drinks late in the night.

Criminal lawyer Ashok Arora said the grounds for the parole — extended by a month to November 22 on chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s recommendation to lieutenant governor Tejendra Khanna — were “ridiculous”.

“Parole is not a matter of right, it’s granted under special circumstances, it’s not a holiday from jail. The fact that he was in a pub is a dangerous precedent and is ground enough to reject bail. Parole is granted only for specific purposes, say for father’s cremation or an equally serious matter, and that too it’s given for a day or two,” he said.

“But we all know who Sharma is and what influence he has.”

Apart from a hotel and a movie hall in Chandigarh, the family owns four joints in the town and at least three more in Raipur, Manali and Jammu. Sharma himself owns a popular disco-cum-pub, Blue Ice, in Chandigarh’s posh Sector 17. While his father Vinod is a Haryana Congress leader, his grandfather, Kedar Nath Sharma, was a Congress worker from Patiala who later became a liquor contractor.

Chief minister Dikshit said whatever had been done was “within the legal purview”.

“It (recommending parole) has been done after taking suggestions from everybody (concerned agencies). It was not done because there was a pressure on the government. It’s not given on our whims and fancies, but done with a reason and because he has not taken a parole before. It is his right. We will not favour anybody,” she said.

Sources, however, said her office received a recommendation from Haryana chief minister B.S. Hooda to grant Sharma parole.

The Delhi chief minister also seems to have forgotten that the Supreme Court had rejected Sharma’s bail plea on similar grounds, citing the “seriousness of the offence”.

Legal experts say Sharma’s connections got him such an extended parole on such “flimsy” grounds.

“Mother’s illness is a general ground on which parole can be granted. But the grounds need to be verified. In this case, one cannot say that Sharma’s mother was grievously ill or that he didn’t have anyone else to take care of her,” said lawyer H.S. Phoolka.

Senior Supreme Court advocate Kamini Jaiswal said even when inmates fell sick, they were admitted to a hospital either inside the jail or outside. “But they are rarely let out on parole. Even in such cases, paroles usually last for a fortnight, or maybe a month.”

It’s so rare for murder convicts to get parole that Tihar inmates had petitioned Delhi High Court three months ago for transparency in the process of granting the relief. They also alleged that parole was granted only to influential prisoners.

Responding to the petition, the Delhi government’s home department said in an affidavit that only 25 per cent of parole applications were approved.

In the case of Sharma, who was acquitted by a trial court before a public outcry forced a retrial, there was obviously no verification of claims that his mother was seriously ill.