Dignified treatment of prisoners, SC direction

Mangalore Today News Network

Sep 16, 2017: The Supreme Court on Sept 15, Friday asked the states to provide proper life of dignity to prisoners, consider ‘open prisons’ and provide all medical facilities to inmates. In a slew of directions on jail reforms in the country, the court also directed the high courts to grant compensation to the kin of prisoners who met with unnatural deaths during incarceration.

“There must be a genuine desire to ensure that the guarantee to a life of dignity is provided to the extent possible even in prisons, otherwise Article 21 of the Constitution will remain a dead letter,” a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said.

The court directed the states to take remedial steps after finding that the medical facilities do not meet minimum standards in Karnataka, West Bengal and Delhi. “The right to health is undoubtedly a basic human right,” it said.

The central and state governments cannot proceed on the basis that prisoners can be treated as chattel as vast majority of them are undertrial prisoners, it said.Observing that a common person does not violate the law for no reason at all, the bench said it is circumstances that lead to a situation where there is a violation of law.

“On many occasions, such a violation may be of a trivial nature or may be a one-time aberration and, in such circumstances, the offender has to be treated with some degree of humanity,” the bench added in its 43-page judgement.

Board of visitors : The court also passed an order for setting up a board of visitors with eminent members of society, appointment of counsellors for first-time offenders, frequent meetings and use of phones and video conferencing for talking to family members with prisoners as part of the continuing directions in a suomotu petition started on a letter sent by former CJI R C Lahoti on inhuman conditions in 1,382 prisons.

After noticing that 551 unnatural deaths were reported between 2012 and 2015, the court said it is time for the state to actually come to grips with reality as it exists in a very large number of prisons. It directed for documenting each natural and unnatural death in prison in accordance with NHRC’s suggestions. “What is needed is a review of all prisons with a humanitarian nuance,” the bench said.  The Supreme Court on Sept 15,  asked all high courts to register a suomotu petition to identify kin of prisoners who admittedly died an unnatural death after 2012 and award suitable compensation to them.

“What is practised in our prisons is the theory of retribution and deterrence and the ground situation emphasises this... It is this ‘rejection’ of the philosophy of our criminal justice system that leads to violence in prisons and eventually unnatural deaths,” it said. It is a solace to many suffering in prisons and a recognition for those advocating good prison practices in the coutry.