By A Mirsab, TwoCircles.net,
Jabalpur (MP): Based on suggestions of a petitioner with regards to improving conditions of prisons across Madhya Pradesh, the double bench of High Court has directed the state to work on those suggestions.
The untiring pursuit by Shamim Modi, a petitioner (Writ Petition 4278/2009) to see enhancement in the state prisons’ conditions took a turn on Friday when Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice Sushir Kumar Gupta of MP High Court sought answers from the state government on Modi’s suggestions.
Shamim Modi
The bench first asked Advocate General of the State to give response of the state Government to both the suggestions/applications and then said, “The state government should inform this Court as to what steps have been taken with regard to the suggestions, any developments made and what are the difficulties faced by them and the reasons for the same along with alternate suggestions and proposal if any, including the question of constituting the State Level Monitoring Committee.”
Modi argues her petition on her own and is committed to bring developments to present conditions of state prisons. Modi is a political activist who was briefly imprisoned for 23 days in 2009 at two different MP prisons. Currently, she is assistant professor at TISS, Mumbai and actively following the writ petition to bring out changes in the conditions of prisons in the state.
As per High Court order dated November 14, 2014, Modi had submitted an 84-point tabular format questioner to the jail department of the MP state about general human rights condition in the jail. The state government had then submitted counter reply to Modi’s submissions before the High Court.
Modi analysed the facilities at the 124 jails and strongly suggested forming a state level monitoring committee. As asked by High Court, Modi submitted the data in a tabular format for 11 Central Jails, 35 district Jails, 78 Sub Jails – total of 124 jails in Madhya Pradesh.
The analysis of her data raises following main issues:
1. Essential facilities to be provided to the jail inmates depends on the whims and fancies of the particular jail authority as there is no uniformity in the rules / regulations and guidelines followed by prisons of the same category.
2. There is a huge variation in the facilities provided to the inmates of all categories of jails, which is in violation of equality before law and provides space for corrupt practices and harassment of the inmates while all the other government departments work under the public eye and face constant scrutiny of the media and civil society at large, the jails works in confinement of the four walls.
3. The essential provision of keeping a check in jails through the ‘Board of Visitors’ (BOV) – official and non–official – has never been implemented in letter and spirit.
4. At nine central jails – Indore, Jabalpur, Rewa, Sagar, Satna, Ujjain, Badwani, Narsinghpur and Hoshangabad – the BOV has not been constituted, yet they have provided certain information pertaining to the BOV which questions the reliability of the data provided.
5. No Human Rights Experts or external trainers with expertise in the field have been involved in training the prison staff in developing human rights perspective and sensitization for effective, efficient and sensitive prison management.
The matter has been scheduled for hearing on September 8, 2015 for further orders.