Mumbai: The Bombay high court has ordered the release of an Arthur Road jail inmate after he served 39 days of his three-month sentence for a civil offence as the state was unable to provide the facilities as mandated in the prison manual for civil prisoners.
The prisoner, Krishna Rana, complained that as he had been denied the right to being confined separately from criminal under-trials or convicts and had also been denied various other facilities like meeting his family and speaking to them on the phone as permitted by the statutes. The prisoner had sought a directive to the state to provide the facilities failing which he should be released.
The single-judge bench Gautam Patel, hearing a chamber summons of Rana, allowed his petition and ordered him freed. Rana was released by 5 pm.
Rana had been the defendant in a summary suit filed by Cipla Limited. The single-judge bench of K.R. Shriram has sentenced him to three months in the civil prison on August 31, 2016 for repeatedly giving false statements in the suit proceedings. Rana avoided the sentence and it was only after the Supreme Court rejected his special leave petition on March 19, 2018 did he start the sentence.
After serving 39 days, Rana filed the current chamber summons in which he claimed the jail authorities failed to comply with the provisions for civil prisoners as stipulated in the Civil Jails Act and Prisons Act.
After jailor S.P. Jadhav confirmed the allegations of Rana but assured the court the jail would make alternative arrangements, the court expressed accepted that the state was unable to provide a separate civil prison in the city. The court allowed the prayer of Rana to be released forthwith.
