Orissa High Court Bats For Using Best Practices Adopted Worldwide To Tackle Issue Of Overcrowding Of Jails

Taking into account the issue of overcrowding of prisons in the state, the Orissa High Court has emphasized that best practices adopted elsewhere in the world be used to address the issue of overcrowding of jails and examine how far they can be adopted for implementation in Odisha.

The Bench of Chief Justice Dr. S. Muralidhar and Justice B. P. Routray also asked the state prison authorities to examine the applicability of employing the quarantine process recommended by a high power committee (HPC) of Bihar for jails during the COVID-19

Overcrowding of jails 

The Court was apprised of the issue of overcrowding of prisoners and it was also submitted that a large number of prisons in Odisha having beyond 20% overcrowding and a substantial number beyond 50% of overcrowding. 

Filing an affidavit, the Deputy Inspector General of Prisons set out some of the measures to tackle the issue, which are as follows:

• An action plan for 2020-21 and 2021-22 has been approved by Government for the construction of additional wards in different jails of the State.
• The scheduled capacity of some of the jails will be upgraded to accommodate 2994 more prisoners.
• The new jail building of Special Sub-Jail, Bhadrak will be constructed at the proposed land with an enhanced capacity of 460.

However, the affidavit did not indicate any time schedules for completion of the aforementioned projects and how the additional capacity of 2994 would be distributed across the jails in the State of Odisha.

Further, the DG of Prisons and the Advocate General assured the Court that within the next two weeks a meeting will be convened of the Departments of Home, Prisons, Finance, Office of the Public Prosecutor and all the important stakeholders including civil society groups, and those conversant with the issues including Court former Directors General of Prisons of some States, who could participate in the virtual mode and offer suggestions.

In this regard, the Court directed thus:

"The outcome of the meeting(s) should be the drawing up of a blue print/ action plan, in the short-term and in the long-term, addressing the issue of overcrowding for every jail i.e. circle jail, special jail, district jail, special sub-jail and sub-jail etc. in the State of Odisha. The minutes of such meeting(s) be placed before the Court by the next date along with an affidavit of the DG of Prisons."

As regards the E-Mulaqat facility, it was stated before the Court that the same had commenced in many of the jails in Odisha. 

Further, the Court directed the Member, Odisha State Legal Services Authority to file an affidavit by the next date informing what steps have been taken to conduct jail adalats. The Court also directed the concerned District Magistrates to conduct a surprise visit to the jails again, within their jurisdiction, and submit reports.

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