Decide plea on 'poor' facilities for lawyers visiting jails expeditiously: HC to jail authority

New Delhi, Nov 4 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Monday directed the Director General (Prisons) to decide a representation on the purported lack of facilities for lawyers visiting their clients in jails.

A bench of Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela disposed of a plea over the issue and directed the jail authority to decide the representation expeditiously, preferably within four weeks.

The bench noted that the Delhi government was not ready to make any investments.

"They collect no taxes, they spend no taxes. Their policy is simple, we collect nothing, we spend nothing," it remarked.

The court was hearing a petition by one Shyam Sunder Aggarwal, who sought directions to the authorities concerned for providing various facilities to lawyers visiting undertrials and convicts in the Tihar Jail premises.

After the petitioner's counsel submitted he was not seeking any luxuries but the fulfilment of basic necessities, the bench agreed but said the government did not have money.

Delhi government standing counsel Santosh Kumar Tripathi submitted after he had given a report after his jail visit, the government was agreeable to enhance the capacity to 20,000 inmates in jails.

According to the government counsel, he had suggested augmenting the capacity, as the existing facilities only catered to about 7,000 to 8,000 inmates. But later everything was suspended, he said.

Tripathi said a cost audit of the jail premises was required to be conducted to make appropriate budgets.

The bench, however, remarked, "We don't doubt your intent but it must be implemented on the ground level. The problem is that there is no plan and nothing gets implemented. There has to be a sanction plan, which is still not there." The petitioner had reportedly come across various issues during his Tihar Jail visit, including the waiting time for advocates who had to wait outside in extreme weather conditions for a minimum of an hour or two to meet their clients.

He said there were no arrangements for basic civic amenities such as clean drinking water, toilets in all the 16 jails in the Tihar complex and claimed no parking facility had been provided for advocates despite several acres of land lying vacant.

The petitioner said several of his pleas to the Bar Council of India and Bar Council of Delhi, fell on deaf ears whereas a representation made to the Director General (Prisons) on September 5, elicited no response. PTI SKV SKV AMK AMK