Chandigarh, 4 Jan 

Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is serving a 20-year jail term for raping two of his disciples, has been granted a 40-day parole, sources said on Sunday. Singh is currently lodged at the Sunaria jail in Haryana’s Rohtak district.

This is the 15th time Singh has stepped out of prison since his conviction in 2017. His latest release comes months after he was granted a similar parole in August last year.

The Dera chief is serving a 20-year sentence awarded by a special CBI court in 2017 for the rape of two disciples. In a separate case, Singh and three others were convicted in 2019 for the murder of a journalist more than 16 years ago.

In recent years, Singh has repeatedly been granted parole or furlough. He was allowed a 21-day furlough in April 2025 and a 30-day parole in January 2025, ahead of the February 5 Delhi Assembly polls. Earlier, he was given a 20-day parole on October 1, 2024, just days before the October 5 Haryana Assembly elections. In August 2024, Singh was granted a 21-day furlough.

In February 2022, he was permitted a three-week furlough barely two weeks before the Punjab Assembly elections, a decision that had sparked political controversy and criticism from several quarters.

Sikh organisations, including the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), have in the past strongly criticised the repeated grant of parole and furlough to Singh, alleging that such relief sends a wrong message and hurts public sentiment.

In May 2024, the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted Singh and four others in the 2002 murder case of the sect’s former manager Ranjit Singh, citing “tainted and sketchy” investigations. A special CBI court had earlier sentenced them to life imprisonment in the case, holding Singh guilty of hatching a criminal conspiracy.

On many occasions when Singh was released earlier, he stayed at the Dera’s ashram in Uttar Pradesh’s Bagpat district. The Sirsa-headquartered Dera Sacha Sauda has a significant following across Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and several other states.