Follow ICMR norms to check spread in jails: HC to prisons

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Thursday directed Maharashtra prison authorities to follow all guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to contain the spread of Covid-19 in jails across the state and to ensure safety of all inmates currently lodged there.

A bench led by Chief Justice Dipankar Datta disposed of a bunch of petitions seeking medical safeguards for jail inmates after the state submitted a list of its draft guidelines on their safety and on implementing norms of the state and ICMR on Covid-19 testing,treatment, and other safeguards in prisons across Maharashtra.

The bench accepted the state government’s assurances. It, however, directed the governinmates

ment to conduct test of any inmate who showed symptoms .

The bench also directed the state to conduct random testing and screening of inmates for coronavirus.

The court asked the state to upload on the latter’s website updates on the number of who test positive for coronavirus, details of its quarantine centres, Covid care centres and temporary prisons it has requisitioned. It asked the state to decongest jail.

The court’s judgement came on a bunch of Public Interest Litigations filed by the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), and other individual petitioners.

The pleas, filed through senior counsel Mihir Desai and others, sought the state be directed to ensure safety of prisoners currently lodged in the Arthur Road Jail, and also prisons across Maharashtra, in the wake of news that inmates and jail staff had tested positive.

Last month, during a previous hearing, the state government had ubmitted that it was unable to conduct adequate testingin prisons due to overcrowding.