Kriti Agrawal
On Thursday, Bombay High Court announced that it would direct the High Powers Committee (HPC) constituted last year to decongest Maharashtra’s jails to meet on a regular basis and recognize additional categories of prisoners who could be released on temporary bail or emergency parole.
The High Court has also directed the Maharashtra government to specify whether the requirement of obtaining an Aadhar card in order to be vaccinated can be waived, at least for prisoners.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarni was hearing a Suo motu PIL it had taken up last month based on coverage of the sudden surge of Covid cases in prisons across the state in the Free Press Journal and another English national newspaper.
When the case was called for hearing on Thursday, Advocate General (AG) Ashutosh Kumbhakoni told the bench that there are currently 244 prisoners infected with the virus.
The court was also told that the state is taking every precaution to keep Covid out of jail.
Senior counsel Mihir Desai, on the other hand, informed the bench of a number of concerns, including the lack of adequate testing in prisons and prisoners being forced to wear a single mask for the past year.
Prof Vijay Raghavan said, “Last year 10,000 prisoners were released. Present population in jails across the state is more than 35,000 but the official capacity is 23,000, the professor told the bench. Thus, overcrowding is a major problem with our jails. I would request, the HPC be made to meet regularly so that it could identify more categories of prisoners, who could be released on temporary basis.”
CJ Datta said that, “We will pass an order asking the HPC to meet regularly since it had last met in June 2020. It can again meet and identify categories of prisoners, who could be released in view of Covid surge in prisons.”
The bench noted during the hearing that cases inside prisons have increased as a result of staffers going in and out of the jails.
Justice Kulkarni suggested that, “You (state) can consider keeping batches of staffers, who could be made to live in jail premises for a specific period. And by the time their time period (to stay in jail premises) would come to an end, you can have another batch ready and test them before they start their job.”
The court also directed the state to ensure that prisoners receive masks and hand sanitizers on a daily basis. Meanwhile, the state has performed 64,000 checks on prisoners, according to the bench.