Bombay High Court issues directions to all the Prisons in Maharashtra for dealing with arrogant and quarrelsome inmates.
Don’t assault prisoners, even if they are abusive/arrogant, or of quarrelsome nature, towards jail staff, instead Jail Superintendent, may report the incidents to the concerned judges and may also take appropriate, action as per jail manual, this is one of the many directions issued to all the Prisons in Maharashtra, by the Bombay High Court.
A division bench of Justice SS Shinde and Justice AM Dhavale, have asked , the registry to send their order, passed on Tuesday, to the Director General of Prison, who is to distribute the same among all jail superintendents.
The other directions, says jail inmates are in physical custody of the jail superintendent and constructive custody of Judicial Magistrate/Sessions judge. It is thus their responsibility to ensure that except restriction on liberties, their fundamental rights are not violated. There should not be any assault or harassment to them either by jail staff or other inmates.
The court has placed the onus on the Jail Superintendents to take precautions, to prevent incidents of assault even in cases, where the victim may be arrogant or of quarrelsome nature.
Further, in spite of taking all precautions, if any jail inmate is subjected to assault by jail guard or other inmates, he should be immediately provided medical aid in jail hospital. If injuries are serious, he should be taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. The concerned judge, should be immediately informed about the same.
Care should be taken to see that the victim and other witnesses are not subjected to any pressure, so as to refrain them from disclosing the truth.
The directions were given while dismissing a petition filed by the son of a former inmate of the Ahmednagar prison, who claimed his father was tortured by the jail staff and inquiry should be initiated against them.
Box: Last year, Manjula Shetye, an inmate at the Byculla Prison, allegedly died after being assaulted by prison officials. She suffered several injuries on her body. However, the Prison officials had claimed that Shetye died after she fell in the toilet inside the prison.
The police had initially registered a case of accidental death in the case but later the probe was transferred to the crime branch and jail staff including the Jailor of the prison, have been arrested. Soon after the incident a riot had broke out in the prison, where inmates assaulted officials blaming them for the incident.
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