Provide basic necessities to convicts' families: Gujarat high court

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court has ordered jail authorities to ensure that basic necessities are made available to distressed family members of murder convicts, whose pleas for temporary bail in view of the Covid-19 situation have been denied.

While many prisoners, undertrials facing charges punishable with less than seven years’ jail, were temporarily released due to the pandemic, many others who are facing serious charges or have been sentenced to life, also requested the court for temporary bail in order to help family members who are in a pitiable financial condition after the lockdown.

In various orders passed over a month, in response to certain prisoners’ demands to allow them to go and help their family members in their time of distress due to the lockdown and the Covid-19 pandemic, the high court ordered the inspector general (prisons) to see that the basic necessities of prisoners’ families are met. The court felt that the family members should not suffer in the absence of the prisoners, who could not be granted bail for various reasons.

The prison authorities and the state machinery such as the police department and district collectorates have been asked to inquire with the prisoners’ families and provide them supplies according to the state government’s schemes for the poor after the lockdown was announced.

The government was ordered to verify the condition of the widowed mother of murder convict Haresh Raval in Dhanali village in Banaskantha through the local police. The authorities were ordered to provide her “basic necessities” according to government policy. The HC ordered so because it did not grant bail to Raval.

Another murder convict, Khalap Chaudhary, from Valsad was not granted temporary bail due to the “dreadful spread of coronavirus.” But the court said, “At the same time, we hereby observe and direct that due to absence of applicant, his family should not suffer for want of basic needs of life. The jail authorities shall make available to the family the basic necessities in accordance with the governmental policy.”