In the news report “In utter silence, Dr. Chisty sent home,” published in all print editions of The Hindu on Tuesday (March 20, 2012) and carried online for several hours, the news that the Government of India had granted clemency to Mohammad Khalil Chisty — the 80-year-old Pakistani virologist undergoing life imprisonment in Ajmer — and that he had been deported to Pakistan was incorrect.
Dr. Chisty's counsel, U.U. Lalit, did not make any statement in the Supreme Court before a Bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and J. Chelameswar that the Pakistani national had been deported.
In fact, there was a similar case before the same Bench on the same day filed by another Pakistani national, Danial Jaffar.
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He had sought a direction to the Government of India that he be deported to Pakistan on the ground that he had completed one year of imprisonment awarded by a court in India. He was serving his sentence in Amritsar jail. The counsel for Danial Jaffar had made a statement in the court that the petitioner had already been deported to Pakistan and in view of that nothing survived in the
The Hindu's correspondent inadvertently mistook the case of this petitioner as that of Dr. Chisty.
In the petition filed on behalf of Dr. Chisty challenging his sentence of life imprisonment and seeking to set him at liberty, the court granted two weeks time to the Rajasthan government to file a reply and adjourned the proceedings till then.
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A correction was posted on The Hindu's website and on Twitter on Tuesday morning. The Hindu would like to apologise to its readers, and to the family and well-wishers of Dr. Chisty for this error.
Editor
The Hindu