Tihar Central Jail is overcrowded with about 14,000 inmates lodged in its nine jails and district jail at Rohini against their total capacity of 6,500. The undertrial prisoners charged with petty crimes and languishing in jails for over six months due to delay in trial should be released.
The Delhi government made these submissions on Thursday before a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, which has taken suo motu cognisance of a communication received from 612 women inmates, who have served half of their maximum sentence without completion of trial.
Delhi government’s standing counsel Rahul Mehra told the court that the scope of the matter, being heard as a public interest litigation, should be enlarged to include all other similarly placed male prisoners.
Mr. Mehra, representing Delhi Prisons, said the undertrials should not be made to suffer because of lack of speedy trial in their cases. However, inmates charged with heinous crimes such as murder, rape and dowry deaths may not be granted the relief, he said.
The Bench, comprising Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath, directed the Delhi Legal Services Authority to file a report on the steps taken by it on the issue and posted the case for hearing on July 14. The court said it would pass a comprehensive order on the subject on that date.
Justice Kurian Joseph, Judge of the Supreme Court, had recently written to the High Court’s Chief Justice about the plight of women prisoners in Tihar jail after he received an appeal from them. The letter, highlighting the “suffering and grievances” of women prisoners, was turned into a PIL.
The Delhi Legal Services Authority informed the court that it was running legal service clinics in each jail of Tihar, which were regularly visited by its women legal aid lawyers and senior officers.
The Bench observed that the issue of progress of trial needed regular monitoring as it was not clear if periodic reports about the condition of the undertrial prisoners were being submitted, as directed by the Supreme Court in 2014.
In their plea seeking release on personal bonds, women prisoners had complained of overcrowding in jail and delay in disposal of their cases, while expressing their inability to fulfil the conditions of bail bonds, because of which they could not secure their release.
The apex court had in 2014 asked judicial officers across the country to visit the jails falling in their jurisdiction to identify and release undertrial prisoners who had spent half of the maximum period of sentence prescribed under the law for the offences with which they were charged.
