MADURAI
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday sought data on the number of released prisoners who were abandoned, after a public interest litigation petition, filed in 2017, sought a revamp of the Tamil Nadu Discharged Prisoners Aid Society.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Justice Subramonium Prasad directed the petitioner to gather data on the number of prisoners who are abandoned and homeless. The court asked the petitioner to take the help of State and District Legal Services Authorities and non-governmental organisations in this regard.
The court was hearing the petition filed by K.R. Raja of Madurai, who also sought a direction to the State to open homes for released prisoners who were rendered homeless after being abandoned by their families.
The petitioner pointed out that the Tamil Nadu Discharged Prisoners Aid Society was formed with the objective of enabling releasedprisoners to lead a honest and respectable life. It also aimed at preventing juvenile and casual offenders from becoming habitual offenders.
If the State government took steps to materialise the objectives of the Society, there could be a lot of positive changes in the State, particularly in correctional administration, crime control and re-integration of reformed and discharged prisoners into mainstream society, the petitioner said.
The Tamil Nadu Prison Manual Rules mandated that there should be assistance given to prisoner to be released. If there was no proper pre-release programme and financial assistance for the discharged prisoners to redefine their lives, there could be an increase in recidivism, he said.
