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| HC asks district committees to submit jail visit reports | | PIL on Prisoners | | Early Times Report
srinagar, Aug 10: While directing the Government to submit compliance report with regard to its directions on jail conditions in the State, the High Court has asked all district committees, headed by District and Sessions Judges, to furnish their jail visit reports.
After hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by High Court Bar Association (HCBA) on the condition of jail inmates, a division bench of the High Court, comprising Chief Justice MM Kumar and Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar, has directed all the district judges to submit their jail visit report by or before the next date of hearing.
Arguing that the condition of jail inmates in J&K is "worst", Mian Abdul Qayoom, president HCBA prayed before the court that Government be directed to ensure better living condition for detenues and prisoners in light of jail manual and detenues general order, 1968.
The bench agreed and accordingly directed the district committees, headed by district judges, to submit their reports on the condition of jail inmates based on committees' visits to different jails in their respective districts. The district committees comprise District and Sessions judge, district magistrate, SSP and Chief Medical Officer.
During his arguments, Qayoom informed the court that barring district Reasi, no other district committee had submitted its jail visits report.
The Court later directed the State Government to file a fresh compliance report on its orders passed in 2010, Mian Qayoom said. Pertinently, the Court has issued over a dozen directions since 2009 to streamline the condition of jail inmates as per jail manual and detenue general order.
The PIL filed by HCBA seeks court directions for betterment of living conditions and redressal of grievances of the jail inmates and prisoners detained at interrogation centres in Jammu and Kashmir.
In its petition, the Bar has also claimed that the detainees are not produced before State constituted advisory boards for a hearing. "In terms of section 27 of the Prisons Act, in prison containing male as well as female prisoners, the female prisoners have to be imprisoned in separate buildings in such a manner as to prevent their seeing or conversing with the male prisoners," reads the petition.
Similarly in a prison where male prisoners under 18-yrs of age are confined, they have to be separated from other prisoners, Qayoom said adding that in fact criminal prisoners have to be kept apart from convicted criminals and civil prisoners have to be kept away from criminal prisoners.
In the terms of Jammu and Kashmir detainees (General) order, 1968, the detainees have to be kept in single rooms or association barracks, separate from ordinary prisoners. In all the jails of the State, these provisions of the law were not being observed by the jail authorities, the PIL emphasized.
According to Qayoom, the fact is that the Court has framed Case Flow Management Rules, 2009. "Under these directions of the Supreme Court, a writ of habeas corpus shall invariably be disposed of within a period of 15 days," reads the Bar PIL.
"After hearing arguments in the detention cases judgments are reserved, but are announced after months, which is contrary to very concept of life and liberty of an individual as enshrined in the Constitution," the PIL reads. |
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