New Delhi: States and Union territories must ensure that their prison manuals do not provide for inmates to be segregated or assigned duties based on their caste and religion, the Union home affairs ministry said in an advisory on Monday (February 26).
The ministry said it had realised that some prison manuals were providing for such discriminatory practices.
It pointed out that a model prison manual it prepared in 2016 prohibited classifying prisoners based on their caste or class and also their discrimination in prison kitchens on caste or religious grounds.
The constitution also prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste and place of birth, the ministry added.
“All states and UTs [Union territories] are requested to take note of the above and ensure that their state prison manual/prison Act should not contain such discriminatory provisions,” its advisory read.
“In case any such provision exists, immediate steps must be taken to amend/remove the discriminatory provision from the manual/Act.”
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court issued a notice to 11 states and the home affairs ministry in a petition filed by The Wire reporter Sukanya Shantha on Indian prison manuals sanctioning caste-based discrimination.
The apex court took note of three aspects in which discrimination is prevalent in prisons: the division of labour on the basis of caste, their segregation on the basis of caste and the discriminatory provisions used specifically against the people known as the denotified tribes.
Also read: From Segregation to Labour, Manu’s Caste Law Governs the Indian Prison System
Prisons are a state subject and are run as per the prison manuals of individual states.
While these manuals have gone through a few changes in the past decades, some continue to retain unconstitutional caste-based labour rules.
For instance, the Madhya Pradesh prison manual of 1968 says: “conservancy work, or manual scavenging, shall be carried out by a Mehtar prisoner who would be assigned for handling human excreta in the toilets”.
Mehtars are a Scheduled Caste and have for long engaged in manual scavenging work.
Similarly, along with assigning sweeping work to those from the Dalit community, the West Bengal jail code also states that those belonging to the “high caste” group shall be appointed as cooks.
Soon after The Wire published a story titled ‘From Segregation to Labour, Manu’s Caste Law Governs the Indian Prison System’ – on which Shantha’s petition in the Supreme Court is also based – in December 2020, the Rajasthan high court took up the matter suo motu and directed the state’s home department to change its prison rules.
For the first time in 70 years, the rule book was finally changed and all mentions of caste-based practices were finally dropped.
Prisoners’ medical care and online records
The home affairs ministry’s advisory also advised states and Union territories to regularly examine the health of prisoners and must conduct special check-ups for women and transgender prisoners.
It said prisoners must be screened for infectious diseases, including sexually transmitted ones, as well as for their mental well-being.
The advisory also asked for databases on the e-prisons platform to be updated regularly and to “ensure that the information is entered in all columns and no field is left blank”.
Updates on this platform must also include details on prisoners’ health check-ups, the ministry said.