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PIL on J&K jail conditions

KT NEWS SERVICE. Dated: 8/11/2012 1:48:09 AM

HC directs district judges to file jail reports, asks Govt to file compliance report

SRINAGAR, Aug 10: The High Court has directed all the district committees headed by district and sessions judges to visit jails and interrogation centres and submit reports on the condition of inmates in light of detenue general order 1968.
According to Mian Abdul Qayoom, president High Court Bar Association (HCBA) a division bench headed by Chief Justice M M Kumar directed the committees mandated to report about jail conditions in the state, to comply with the previous court directions and furnish their reports by or before the next date of hearing. The directions have been issued in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by HCBA on the condition of jail inmates.
The Court has also directed the state government to file a fresh compliance report on its orders passed in 2010, Qayoom added. Pertinently, the Court has issued over a dozen directions since 2009 to streamline the condition of jail inmates as per jail manual and detenue general order.
“In this petition we have sought court directions on better living conditions and redressal of grievances of the jail inmates and prisoners detained at interrogation centres in Jammu and Kashmir,” Qayoom told Kashmir Times.
In the PIL it has been said that the main grievance of the detainees booked under PSA is that their cases are not decided promptly. “The fact is that the Hon’ble Court has framed Case Flow Management Rules, 2009. Under these directions of the Supreme Court, a writ of habeas corpus shall invariably be disposed of within a period of 15 days,” reads the PIL.
“After hearing arguments in the detention cases judgments are reserved, but are announced after months, which is contrary to very concept of life and liberty of an individual as enshrined in the constitution,” the PIL adds.
It has also been mentioned that the detainees are not produced before state constituted advisory boards for a hearing.
In the PIL, it is said that in terms of section 27 of the Prisons Act, in prison containing male as well as female prisoners, the female prisoners have to be imprisoned in separate buildings in such a manner as to prevent their seeing or conversing with the male prisoners.
Similarly in a prison where male prisoners under 18-yrs of age are confined, they have to be separated from other prisoners. In fact criminal prisoners have to be kept apart from convicted criminals and civil prisoners have to be kept away from criminal prisoners.
In the terms of Jammu and Kashmir detainees (General) order, 1968, the detainees have to be kept in single rooms or association barracks, separate from ordinary prisoners. In all the jails of the state, these provisions of the law were not being observed by the jail authorities, PIL further reads.