To ease crowded jails, Bombay HC tells state to build new prison

Mumbai: The Bombay high court had recently asked the state government to construct a new prison with facilities like a kitchen, among other things, which would solve the problem of space constraint in jails.   

A division bench of Justices Abhay Oka and Amjad Sayed was hearing a petition filed by Shaikh Ibrahim Abdul, who is lodged in Yerwada jail in Pune. The petitioner stated that the living conditions in the prison are poor and urged the court to issue directions for the problem to be tackled.

At a previous hearing, the government had informed the court that the quality of food at Yerwada jail was good, but there was a space crunch in the prison. It said that Yerwada jail has a capacity to house 2,323 prisoners, but currently has about 6,000 inmates. The HC, during the hearing, asked the state government to submit a plan for setting up a new prison by January 2017 so that the problem of overcrowding in jails is solved.

This new prison should be an ideal one with all the necessary infrastructure and facilities that the inmates require, said the bench in a recent order. Citing an instance, the bench said that Central Prison at Arthur Road in Mumbai was also too crowded earlier, but the government built another prison at Taloja in Navi Mumbai, thus solving the problem of overcrowding in the jail.