COVID Situation In Jails- Gauhati High Court Revives Suo Moto Petition, Seeks Details From Jail Authorities About Children Lodged In Jails

Reviving the suo moto writ petition instituted last year, the Gauhati High Court has sought details from Jail Authorities with regards to the children lodged inside jails in Assam in view of rising covid 19 cases in the State.

The development came from a division bench comprising of Chief Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Manash Ranjan Pathak who had sought State Government's response on the number of inmates inside Assam Jails who have been infected from Covid 19 and also about the measures undertaken by the jail authorities for dealing with the issue.

The High Court had vide order dated 23rd July 2020 registered the suo moto petition in view of the repeatedly reported number of Covid-19 positive cases detected inside the jails in Assam.

The High Court had then directed the Inspector General of Prisons, Assam to state details about the number of Covid-19 positive detected in each of the jails, precautions taken before the inmates were detected Covid-19 positive and the steps being taken for disinfecting the jails and giving treatment to the jail inmates.

Reviving the aforesaid suo moto petition on April 29, the High Court had directed the State Government to file new data on record in view of the second Covid wave and covid positive cases inside the jails.

During the course of proceedings yesterday, the Court had ordered thus:

"Certain details have been provided by the counsel as to the number of inmates in various jails in Assam. We have noticed that out of total 1303 inmates in central Jail Guwahati, four are children and there are children in other jails as well such as Tezpur, Silchar, Nagaon, Kokrajhar, Goalpara, Hailakandi, Karimganj, North Lakhimpur, Sivasagar, Dhemaji, Udalguri and Special Jail, Nagaon. We would like to get the details from the jail authorities as to these children."

With the aforesaid direction, the Court put up the matter for further hearing on May 11.

In a similar development, underlining that the caretakers of Juvenile Centres, need to be vaccinated for their safety and also for the safety of the juveniles, the same Bench yesterday asked the Assam Government to consider treating them as "frontline warriors".

Click Here To Read Order Dated April 29

Click Here To Read Order Dated May 6