Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has given the State government three months to identify government land to construct additional prisons in Mumbai and Pune.
A Division Bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice A.A. Sayed was hearing a petition on Wednesday filed by undertrial Shaikh Ibrahim Abdul lodged at Yerwada jail. The petition highlights poor conditions of jails across the State.
The court directed the State to consider whether additional construction could be done within the precincts of the existing prisons. The court also directed that bathrooms shall be provided in Yerwada, Byculla and Arthur Road Jail within six months.
The court said a modern audio system shall be provided so that prisoners and the persons interviewing them could hear each other. The Bench also said a committee shall be constituted, which will be headed by a retired judge, to look into the issues of infrastructure, furniture, meeting room, computers, printers and staff and a report shall be submitted in six months.
In an earlier hearing, a principal district and sessions judge of Pune submitted a report to the HC, which said there are 905 convicts and 2,887 trial prisoners in Yerwada jail, against the sanctioned strength of 2,323 as on October 8, 2015. There are 99 women prisoners in the jail, of which 228 are undertrials, but it has a capacity of 125 to 150 prisoners.
