New Delhi: The right to contest an election from jail does not give anyone the right to be released for campaigning, the Delhi high court said while rejecting custody parole to MLA Mukhtar Ansari to canvass for himself in the ongoing UP Assembly elections.

“A right to contest the election cannot imply that the candidate gets a right to be released from jail for canvassing as a candidate for being elected.

“If the candidate is in custody for an alleged offence, it would be the discretion of the court to release him or not, depending on the facts and circumstances of the case,” Justice Mukta Gupta observed.

Setting aside the trial court’s decision to grant custody parole to Ansari, the judge, in a 23-page order, said “when a person in custody fills up nomination as a candidate, he does not get a vested right to be released for canvassing. He runs the risk of not released on bail to contest election from custody.”

Mr Ansari, an MLA who recently joined the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to contest from Mau Assembly seat in UP, was given custody parole by a trial court on February 16 till March 4, enabling him to campaign in the election.

The order was stayed the next day by the high court after the Election Commission moved a plea seeking cancellation of his parole on the ground that he may influence witnesses in the 2005 murder case of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai in which he is facing trial in a Delhi court.