Delhi Govt’s Decision To Cap Number Of Visits By Family Members, Legal Advisers With Prisoners Not Arbitrary: High Court

The Delhi High Court has said that Delhi Government's decision to restrict the total number of visits by family members, relatives, friends and legal advisers with jail inmates to two times a week, keeping in view the number of undertrials and prisoners, cannot be said to be arbitrary.

A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad said that the decision has been taken after “careful consideration” of the facilities available in jails, availability of the staff and the number of undertrials.

The court disposed of a public interest litigation moved by two advocates challenging Rule 585 of the Delhi Prison Rules, 2018. It also sought amendment of the Rules to include interview with legal advisers be open from Monday to Friday for an appropriate allotted time with no cap on interviews per week.

Rule 585 states that every prisoner shall be allowed reasonable facilities for seeing or communicating with his family members, relatives, friends and legal advisers for preparation of an appeal, procuring bail or for arranging management of his property and family affairs.

It was the petitioners’ case that limiting the number of visits to twice a week is violative of Article 21 of the Constitution of India as it limits the right of an undertrial to have adequate resources to legal representation.

The petitioners’ submitted that fixing a cap on number of visits to an undertrial is manifestly arbitrary as it imposes an unreasonable restriction on the right to legal representation and violates right to access justice.

On the other hand, the Delhi Government in its response submitted that the decision to cap the number of visits was taken after looking at the number of inmates in jails in the national capital. It states that 16 Jails in Delhi are housing more than 18,000 prisoners against the sanctioned capacity of 10,026.

The government also submitted that providing two legal interviews to a prisoner can be increased on request of the inmate or a visiting counsel and it does not fall foul of the constitutional right of the prisoner.

Reliance was also placed on Model Prison Manual, 2016 and the Prison Rules of other states to contend that prisoners are not allowed visitation for more than twice a week outside Delhi as well.

The bench observed that in matters of policy, courts do not substitute their own conclusion with that of the government merely because another view is possible.

However, the court also said that the PIL is not an adversarial litigation as it was filed in the interest of prisoners. It permitted the petitioners to give a representation to the Delhi Government by providing suggestions.

The court added that it expects the government to consider the representation “in the right spirit.”

“Depending upon the number of undertrials and prisoners, the State has taken a decision of capping total number of visits by family members, relatives, friends and legal advisers to two times a week and it cannot be said that the said decision is completely arbitrary. The said decision has been taken after careful consideration of the facilities available in the prisons, availability of the staff and the number of undertrials,” the court said.

Title: JAI A. DEHADRAI AND ANR v. GOVERNMENT OF NCT OF DELHI AND ANR

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Del) 163

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