Aryan Grover
The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court, comprising of Justice Ravindra v Ghuge and Justice Balchandra U Debadwar, while hearing writ petitions filed by inmates of the Paithan open prison, suggested that prisoners from congested jails should be transferred to the open prison to take care of the 220 cattle and 325 acres of sugarcane plantation under the prison administration.
This recommendation came after the court was informed that the prison, having a capacity of 500 inmates, only had 41 inmates as most others had taken the benefit of emergency parole/furlough and had been released in accordance with the guidelines of the high-power committee (HPC).
The bench was hearing writ petitions filed by nine inmates lodged at the Paithan Open prison, who challenged the orders of jail authorities that rejected their pleas for emergency parole amid the pandemic.
The Home department of Maharashtra had amended the Maharashtra Prison (Furlough and Parole) Rules, 1959, in 2020 to allow prison authorities to release inmates temporarily to control the spread of COVID-19 in jails.
The committee constituted for this cause had also recommended that undertrials who had been booked for offences other than under certain laws should be released temporarily.
The counsel appearing for the petitioners, Advocates PP More and SP Chate, submitted that jail authorities had rejected the inmates’ pleas for parole although most of them had been in prison for five to ten years.
It was also contended by the advocates that eight of the nine prisoners who appeared as petitioners had not availed their parole or furlough during their entire stay in prison, and that it would be discriminatory if they still are not granted emergency parole on the very ground which had been cited by hundreds of other inmates to seek parole in the pandemic.
The court raised concerns over the fact that Paithan open prison requires more inmates for cultivation and safeguarding the health of cattle, stating, “The prisons need to have sufficient number of prisoners who can be utilised for such purposes, by keeping in view the object of containing the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic and, for which, physical distancing will have to be maintained. Those convicts who are not entitled for the benefit of emergency parole/furlough can also be utilised for the said purpose.”
While granting eight petitioners the relief of emergency parole, the bench stated, “This issue can also be tackled by the state government by transferring some prisoners to places where their strength has dwindled on account of many being released on emergency parole or under the orders of this court, so as to decongest prison.”
