The social activist, Medha Patkar, approached the apex court and sought for directions to States/Union Territories to formulate a uniform mechanism for decongestion in prisons across India, with respect to the prisoners aged 70 and above.
The plea submitted that the World Health Organization declared that higher mortality rate, due to COVID-19, can be seen more amongst older persons, mainly ones with medical conditions like chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, blood pressures etc.
The plea also stated that subsequent to WHO report, even Ministry of Health also issued health advisory for elderly people wherein it illustrated ways in which this high mortality rate could be brought down amongst prisoners.
The plea also included apex court’s orders regarding prisoners and COVID-19. In March 2020, the court directed the States/Union Territories to form High Powered Committees which could determine the class of prisoners which could be released on bail or emergency parole.
The plea submitted that the HPCs had not taken into account the categorization of prisoners on the basis of their susceptibility to the infection and the need of releasing them on an urgent basis. The plea pointed out that the most susceptible category of prisoners are the elderly or ones aged above 70 years.
The plea highlighted the absence of uniformity in the approaches of HPCs and stated that no uniform criteria had been adopted by the States to decongest the prisons.
The plea also submitted that the chances of indulging in repeated offences reduces at such an age as age increases and recidivism rate decreases.
The plea referred to Article 21, inclusive of Right to Health, and prayed before the bench for issuance of directions to the respondents for adopting a uniform method for release in order to safeguard the interest of elderly prisoners captivated in the prisons across the country.
Leave a Reply