JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's High Court ordered former President Jacob Zuma to return to jail, after setting aside an earlier decision to release him on medical parole, a court judgment showed on Wednesday.

The 79-year old began medical parole in September, and is serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of court, after he ignored instructions to participate in a corruption inquiry.

In the same month, South Africa's top court dismissed a bid by Zuma to overturn the sentence. 

The legal processes against him for alleged corruption during his nine-year reign are widely viewed as a test of post-apartheid South Africa's ability to enforce the rule of law, particularly against powerful, well-connected people.

Zuma handed himself in on July 7 to begin his prison sentence, triggering the worst violence South Africa had seen in years as his angry supporters took to the streets.

The protests widened into looting and an outpouring of anger over the hardship and inequality that persist in South Africa 27 years after the end of apartheid. More than 300 people were killed and thousands of businesses were pillaged and razed.

Zuma's legal team is appealing the latest court ruling, his foundation said.

"The judgment is clearly wrong and there are strong prospects that a higher court will come to a totally different conclusion," the foundation wrote on Twitter.

The Department of Correctional Services said that it was studying the judgment and will make any announcements at a later time.