On Thursday, the Bombay High Court directed the prison authorities to conduct random testing of inmates for Covid-19 and also follow guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) scrupulously.
The HC, while disposing of a bunch of public interest litigations (PIL) seeking various reliefs for prison inmates after four inmates succumbed to the infection while in prison, has also directed the authorities to deploy additional forces at all prisons as well as the 35 temporary prisons where inmates are kept in quarantine and are undergoing treatment for Covid-19.
A division bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice MS Karnik pronounced its judgement on PILs filed by People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) through senior counsel Mihir Desai along with advocates Isha Khandelwal and Kritika Agarwal; and Geeta Bharat Jain, a politician represented by advocate Sunny Punamiya; Archana Rupawate also represented by senior counsel Mihir Desai; and advocate Afreen Khan and Devmani Shukla represented by advocate Bhavesh Parmar.
While reading out the operative part of the judgement, the court said it accepted the assurances made by the state government regarding the measures initiated for the well-being of inmates. The bench directed prison authorities to conduct random Covid-19 tests of inmates and to refer for testing any inmate who shows any symptoms for Covid-19. The court also directed the authorities to notify on the prison department’s website details of all the 35 temporary jails that have been set up in 27 districts to serve as makeshift Covid care centres.
The court further directed the state government to implement all the measures that it had formulated in the modified draft guidelines based on the suggestions of the petitioner for containing outbreak in prisons and other correctional homes. While stressing on updating family members of prisoners on their health status, the court said, “Every possible endeavour to be made by the prison authorities to scrupulously follow guidelines issued by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Centre and state governments from time to time regarding safety measures and the standard operating procedures be revised from time to time.”
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