Snehal Upadhyay-
Social Activist Medha Patkar budged towards the Supreme Court for seeking a uniform policy for the release of the prisoners above the age of 70 on due course of COVID-19.
The plea was filed through Advocate Vipin Nair.
The plea states that as declared by the World Health Organisation, COVID-19 causes higher mortality amongst the older aged groups, particularly with underlying medical conditions of prisoners adversely.
The Ministry of Health had also issued a Health Advisory for elderly people, highlighting the ways to reduce mortality rates amongst prisoners.
The Supreme Court on 23rd March 2020 directed States/UTs to constitute High-Powered Committees (HPCs) in order to determine the groups of prisoners who could be released on emergency parole or interim bail.
The main purpose of constituting such a committee was to ensure that States/UTs could assess the situation in their prisons during the pandemic and then ascertain the category of prisoners based on their health conditions to be released.
The petition contended that “As most of the categorization of prisoners is based on social conditions and are based on factors of administrative convenience, the HPCs have not taken into account the categorization of prisoners on the basis of their susceptibility to the infection and their need to be released on an urgent basis. The most susceptible ones here are the aged/elderly prisoners who have a higher chance of getting infected (specifically septuagenarian prisoners, i.e. above 70 years).“
Mentioning the Right to Health as enshrined under Article21 of the Indian Constitution the plea wants a proper uniform method for the release of the elderly prisoners either on interim bail or on emergency parole.