Chandigarh, 13 Aug

Dera Sacha Sauda chief and rape convict Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has been granted a 21-day furlough, official sources said on Tuesday.

During his temporary release period, Singh will go to the Dera ashram in Barnawa in Uttar Pradesh's Baghpat, they further said.

The Sirsa-headquartered Dera sect chief was granted the temporary release days after the Punjab and Haryana High Court disposed of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee's (SGPC) petition against Singh's temporary release.

The high court on 9 August observed that a plea for temporary release by the Dera chief should be considered by the competent authority without any "arbitrariness or favouritism". In June, Singh moved the high court and sought directions to grant him a 21-day furlough.

On 29 February, the high court directed the Haryana government not to grant further parole to the Dera Sacha Sauda chief without its permission. He had been granted a 50-day parole on 19 January.

Singh is serving a 20-year sentence for raping two of his disciples and is lodged in the Sunaria jail in Haryana's Rohtak district. He was sentenced in 2017. The Dera chief and three others were also convicted in 2019 for the murder of a journalist more than 16 years ago.

In May, the high court acquitted Singh and four others in the 2002 murder of the sect's former manager Ranjit Singh, citing "tainted and sketchy" investigations in the matter.

A special CBI court had sentenced them to life imprisonment in the nearly 20-year-old murder case. Singh had been held guilty of hatching a criminal conspiracy with his co-accused.