Madras High Court has directed Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority to carry out surprise inspections of women's jails and lock-ups in the state after three months to ascertain if deficiencies mentioned in a report, including lack of toilets, have been rectified.
The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T S Sivagnanam gave the direction after perusing the report by Additional Director General of Police, Prisons, on deficiencies noted down by TNSLA and the Court appointed Commissioner Advocate, as stated in its June 2 order.
When the matter came up yesterday, the bench noted that there has been part progress in different matters. It accepted the request of the government pleader for three more months' time to complete the remaining task.
The bench then directed the TNSLA Member Secretary, who was present in court, to conduct a surprise inspection after this period, take photos of conditions in jails and lock ups and produce them before it so it can order police to upload them in their website, enabling people to know the conditions there.
The bench said it must be ensured that sufficient copies of jail manual are available in each lock-up and sub-jails and it has to be uploaded on the website within two weeks.
On June 2, the HC had made it clear that unless the deficiencies pointed out are rectified in four weeks, the IGP/ADGP Prisons shall remain present in the court" on July 16.
Earlier, the court had directed the State Legal Authority to inspect all the women jails and submit a report.
It gave the order on petitions seeking a direction to authorities to immediately implement the recommendations of the Board of Visitors constituted on the report of the All India Committee on Prison Reforms.
TNSLA, through District Legal Services Authorities, inspected the jails at Tiruvarur, Tiruchirapalli, Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli and submitted a report.
In the report, several deficiencies such as not providing toilets were mentioned.
