Jails in J'khand overcrowded: govt

Ranchi, Nov 20 (UNI) Taking serious note of the deplorable conditions of the jails in Jharkhand, the Jharkhand High Court today directed the state home secretary, aprticularly jail prison, Deoghar, to appear before the court by December 4 to clarify the latest position.

The state government informed the court that except Ranchi, all jails spread over other districts, were 500 times overcrowded adding about 12,000 prisoners were in different jails.

A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Muthusamy Karpagavinayagam and Justice N N Tiwary, passed the order while hearing PIL filed by Amit Kumar, once in jail but now on bail.

The petitioner alleged that the jails did not have proper place to sleep.

State Home secretary and jail prison, Deoghar appeared before the court as per the earlier order and filed their affidavit.

Earlier, the court had directed the state government to file affidavit in this connection.

The court was informed that Deogahor jail was under expansion process.

The court reprimanded the state government why it had to wait for a court order to do such work.

UNI XC-PRS JYN RN1942