The Tamil Nadu Prison department on Thursday informed the Madras High Court that prisons across the State had been decongested in view of COVID-19 and that the occupancy rate was only 58.72% as on June 1. The court was told that though the total authorised accommodation in all prisons put together was 23,592 inmates, the present overall occupancy was only 13,854.
Appearing before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram said thousands of prisoners had been released on bail since March 23, 2020. The A-G also submitted a report filed by Director General of Prisons Sunil Kumar Singh listing out the steps that had been taken so far to protect prisoners from the pandemic.
The report was filed in response to a suo motu public interest litigation petition that the court had taken up in 2017 with respect to prison reforms. Senior Counsel R. Vaigai, who had been appointed as an amicus curiae in the case, impressed upon the need to vaccinate the prisoners as well as the prison staff on priority basis since they were susceptible to the infection and spread it among others.
Accepting her plea, the judges, in their interim order, wrote: “The State is requested to ensure that the inmates at the correctional homes and the staff there are considered as frontline personnel and administered vaccine on priority basis.” Observing that the second wave of the pandemic appeared to be subsiding now, the judges impressed upon the need to decongest the prisons in future if there was a surge of COVID-19 positive cases once again.
In his report, Mr. Singh said all prisoners as well as prison staff were being screened for symptoms of COVID-19 regularly and referred to the district headquarters hospital if they test positive. Sufficient number of soaps and sanitisers had also been provided in the prisons and physical distancing norms were also followed. Utmost care was being provided to the elderly prisoners with co-morbidities, he added.
So far, one convict, one remand prisoner and 12 prison staff had died due to COVID-19. The government had sanctioned disaster relief fund of ₹1.15 crore to purchase sanitisers, disinfectants and other essential materials. In order to maintain physical distance norms, food was being provided to the prisoners in the dormitories and they were not being allowed to perform joint prayers, the DGP said.
“The prisoners are provided with egg, milk, lemon juice, channa to improve their immune system as per the advice of prison medical officer. Further, Kabasura Kudineer and Nilavembu powder are purchased and stocked sufficiently in prisons. The kasayams are prepared in prisons and given to prisoners. Prison interviews had been suspended and prisoners are instead allowed to make video calls to their family members.
“Totally 58 android mobile phones have been purchased and provided to prisons for this purpose. So far 1,295 prisoners have been given first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 38 prisoners had taken the second dose too. The Director, Public Health and Preventive Medicine has been requested to vaccinate all the prisoners,” the report filed by Mr. Singh read.
Published - June 03, 2021 09:26 pm IST
