( 1 ) THE above-mentioned petitioners have been convicted of offence under Section 302, Indian Penal Code (for short IPC ) in different cases and have been awarded sentence of imprisonment for life. Charanjit Lal was convicted on 10th January 1980, Sunder Lal was convicted on 12th November 1979 and Vijay Singh was convicted on 6th January 1977 They have moved these petitions through Jail complaining of refusal on the part of the Delhi Administration to grant them furlough as envisaged in letter No. F. 18/ (27)/55-Home dated 7th March 1958 of the Delhi Administration to the Inspector General of Prisons etc. The relevant provisions of the said letter are reproduced below for ready reference :

"part-1 (Parole) (Amended vide I (i) A prisoner may be released on parole for such letter No. period as the Chief Commissioner, Delhi, may order; F. 18/59/62- parole shall be admissible for :- Home dt. 16-9-63) (a) Seeing any sick or dying member of the family. (b) any other sufficient cause such as marriage of the prisoner or any other member of the family i. e. son, daughter, sister, brother etc. etc. (c) for construction of a house. (d) for repairs to a badly damaged house. For purpose of (a) above, the prisoner s family means his/her parents, brothers, sister, wife/husband and children. (ii) The period spent on parole will not count as part of the sentence. PART-II (Furlough) I (i) A prisoner who is sentenced to 5 years or more rigorous imprisonment and who has actually undergone three years imprisonment excluding remission may be released on furlough. The first spell may be of three weeks and subsequent spells of two weeks each per annum, provided that : (a) his conduct in jail has been good; he has earned three annual good conduct remissions and provided further that he continues to earn good conduct remissions or maintain good conduct. (b) that he is not a habitual offender. (c) that he is not convicted of robbery with violence, dacoity and arson, (d) that he is not such a person whose presence is considered highly dangerous or prejudicial to the public peace and tranquillity by the District Magistrate of his home district. (ii) The period of furlough will count as sentence undergone except any such period during which the prisoner commits an offence outside. 4. The period of furlough will be treated as a part of the sentence undergone in Jail. "

( 2 ) ON a bare juxtaposition of the aforesaid guidelines pertaining to parole and furlough it is manifest that they are quite distinct in their nature, scope and content. While a prisoner can be released on parole when he is undergoing a sentence of imprisonment for any offence whatsoever and irrespective of the duration of the imprisonment awarded to him, furlough can be granted only in those cases where a prisoner has been sentenced to long imprisonment i. e. five years or more. Further, it is evident that release on parole is designed to afford some relief to the prisoner in certain specified contingencies, for instance, illness or death of member of his family or marriage of the prisoner himself or any member of the family etc. whereas furlough is in the nature of a remission earned by a prisoner by consistent good conduct for over a number of years and it is granted to him as a matter of course if other conditions laid in Part-11 of aforesaid the letter are satisfied. One of the postulates which must weigh with the authorities while granting furlough is that the prisoner s release will not be hazardous or prejudicial to the public peace and tranquillity. Further the period of furlough counts as sentence undergone unless, of course, the prisoner released on furlough commits an offence outside the prison. In other words, while parole is tantamount to more suspension of the sentence for the time being keeping the quantum of sentence awarded to a prisoner in fact, furlough affords double relief in the sense that it gives no only an opportunity to the prisoner to breath fresh a