The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted two weeks’ time for states and Union Territories (UT) to file compliance reports on removing provisions in their jail manuals that discriminates prisoners based on their caste, gender or any disability.
A bench headed by justice JB Pardiwala passed the order while hearing a suo motu petition for ending discrimination inside jails following a judgment passed by the top court in October last year that sought removal of any provision or practice in jails that perpetrated discrimination based on caste or otherwise in allotment of activities inside prisons.
Senior advocate S Muralidhar who is assisting the court as amicus curiae pointed out that while several states and union territories have filed reports of compliance, responses were awaited from states of Telangana, Haryana, Punjab. Manipur, Assam, Chhattisgarh and national capital territory of Delhi (NCTD).
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Lawyers appearing for these states, except Chhattisgarh and Delhi, informed the court that their responses have been filed but the same did not reflect in the information available with the court registry.
Posting the matter to March 4, the bench, also comprising justice R Mahadevan, said, “Most states have filed compliance reports. If any state/UT is yet to file response, we grant a final opportunity.”
On October 3 last year, the top court passed a decision directing the Union and state governments to revise their prison manuals to address any aspect of caste-based discrimination. The judgment came on a petition filed by a journalist Sukanya Shantha who brought out instances of caste discrimination that formed part of several state prison manuals.
The court held that such provisions contained in rules and manuals violate fundamental rights of prisoners and ordered the Centre to make appropriate changes to the Model Prison Manual 2016 and the Model Prison Consolidation of Services Act, 2013 within three months.
The court instituted a suo motu proceedings to monitor steps taken by Union and states to remove any reference of caste in their registers for undertrial and convicted prisoners and directed the states to identify any discrimination that existed in prisons which classified prisoners based on caste, disability or even gender.
On November 7 last year, the amicus informed the court that the judgment should not come in the way of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) which works under the aegis of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and compiles data of prisoners that contains all aspects of their profile. On Muralidhar’s suggestion, the bench clarified that the judgment will not impede the work of NCRB in collecting data.
On Tuesday, the court issued notice to NCRB on whether it was complying with the November 7 direction and further directed states to assist the NCRB in gathering the data.