HC directs Registrar General to visit jails

New Delhi, May 29 (UNI) The Delhi High Court today directed the Registrar General of the High Court to visit the Tihar and Rohini jails to take stock of the situation and assess the condition of the inmates.

While hearing a PIL filed by Advocate Ashok Agrawal for NGO Social Jurist, a division bench of Justice M K Sharma and Hima Kohli asked the Registrar General to pay a visit to both the jails and file a status report.

On behalf of the state government, Jail Superintendent V K Malhotra has filed a status report explaining the facilities provided to the inmates in the Tihar Jail and Rohini Jail.

The petition alleged that more than 13,000 inmates are lodged in both the jails against the combined capacity of 6,200.

In many other states, the authority to grant parole to the inmates was with the Inspector General of Prison, whereas in Delhi the power had been vested with the Court. The Delhi Courts take unusually longer time to grant parole to the inmates in case of emergency such as serious illness and death in a family.

The jails and the jail hospitals did not have life-saving drugs such as insulin, sorbitol and blood pressure medicines exposing the inmates to serious illness.

The inmates who did not have teeth were not provided with dentures depriving them from having basic necessity of life, said the petition.

There was no wheel chair and stretcher to carry a seriously ill patient in the jails.

Due to lack of sufficient water facilities, the inmates were dependent on hand pumps which were also in defunct conditions.

The bathrooms and latrines were also in deplorable conditions, said the PIL seeking direction to the authorities to impove the conditions in the jails.

UNI PAT LR HS2020