Above: The entrance to Central Jail No. 1 of Tihar Prisons (file pic)/Photo: Rajeev Tyagi
In a major development the Delhi High Court on Tuesday (May 15) ordered a CBI inquiry into the alleged assault on the Tihar Jail prisoners late last year by security personnel in the High Risk Ward. The court has asked the investigating agency to submit a report on the same in four weeks.
Delhi’s standing counsel Rahul Mehra argued in court that there were 16,000 prisoners cramped in a place where 5,000 is the total capacity, so it is demoralising for the police force and incidents can happen.
To that Acting Chief Justice Gital Mittal said: “You don’t need violence to manage the jail, An act does not get decriminalised if it is done by a person in uniform.”
The case was filed at the Delhi High Court in December last year containing serious allegations against jail staff and security personnel inside Asia’s largest and India’s only super-security and VIP jail, Tihar, for mercilessly beating up some under-trial inmates on two days in September and November 2017.
The application, made under Article 226 of the constitution, read with Section 482 CrPC, seeks “issuance of urgent interim directions for the protection of the life and limb of the petitioner (an inmate going by the name Jamal, alias Ranjha) and certain other inmates inside the prison”.
The incident seemed to have gone against all that is laid down in jail manuals.
India Legal had published a special and exclusive report on the happenings inside the jail. You can read it here.
—India Legal Bureau