New Delhi, Nov. 8 -- A division bench of the Delhi high court on Friday gave a split verdict in the petition filed by jailed Lok Sabha MP Abdul Rashid Sheikh seeking waiver of costs to attend the Parliament sessions while being in custody. Justice Vivek Chaudhary, who headed the bench, dismissed Rashid's application, holding that attending Parliament sessions as part of routine proceedings does not qualify as an "emergent circumstance" for availing custody parole and warranting a waiver of travel costs. "The above judgments conclusively settle that the appellant has no right, duty, entitlement or privilege, as it may be called, to attend the Parliament proceedings while in lawful custody. Custodial parole can be granted to a convict only on account of death, marriage, or serious illness in the family or to him or any other similar situation. There is no such emergent circumstance placed before us by the appellant for the grant of custody parole. The sole circumstance placed is to attend Parliament sittings in regular course, which cannot be termed as an emergent situation comparable to death, marriage, or serious illness in the family or the the applicant" justice Chaudhary said in his 15-page verdict. Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, however, clarified that Rashid would be required to bear only the reasonable expenses incurred by the State for his daily transportation between Tihar Jail and Parliament. In his 32-page verdict, the judge further observed that if the State feared Rashid might abscond, it was its responsibility to bear the cost of deploying additional police personnel. He added that the manner in which the authorities sought to implement the condition made it unconscionable. "By denying appellant's simple prayer for clarification of the condition imposed, the court would disable the appellant from performing that duty to the detriment of the state, the public and the community at large. Though I do not believe that the condition imposed is per se unconscionable or impossible of performance, however the manner in which the state is attempting to operationalise and implement that condition, by demanding a large sum of money from the appellant to avail custody parole, renders the condition unconscionable, which action of the state needs to be corrected," hesaid. To be sure, although neither of the judges explicitly mentioned in their separate verdicts that the matter should be placed before Delhi high court chief justice DK Upadhyay for the constitution of a bench, such a direction was issued while the verdict was being pronounced.'...