tition Nos 393  549 of 1980
Under Article 32 of the Constitution section Markendaya Amicus Curiae for the Petitioner
M N Abdul Khader and Miss A Subhashini for the Respondents
KRISHNA IYER J Is a prison term in Tihar Jail a post graduate course in crime Such is the poignant issue that emerges from the facts of this case The fundamental human right is not to a legal system that is infallible but to one that is fair  these great words of Lord Diplock in Maharaj vs Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago No2 trigger our jurisdiction to ensure a fair legal deal to the prisoner whose petition to this Court makes frightening exposures about the insiders of Delhi s Central Jail
Kaushik a lifer  to use jail jargon now lodged in the Tihar Central Jail has moved this quasi habeas corpus petition wherein he bitterly complains with facts and figures of the terror and horror physical and psychic let loose on him and other jail mates by a crypto criminal combination of senior officials and superior prisoners thereby making the prison life within that walled world such a trauma and torment the law never meant under the sentence suffered at the hands of the court
Prison torture is not beyond the reach of this Court in its constitutional jurisdiction and so we appointed Shri Subodh Markandeya as amicus curiae and directed the Superintendent of the Jail to make available for him facilities to meet the prisoner Kaushik and to present after a brief fact finding enquiry the facts necessary for taking further action if any
Shri Markandeya has with a gush of gusto executed his work of assisting this Court and made a report and we record our appreciation therefor
What makes law a force is a lawyer with a cause
932 The Delhi Administration has responded through counsel and traversed the grounds in the petition but Shri Abdul Khader appearing for the State has fairly agreed that the Superintendent of the Central jail far from fighting shy of a probe into the prison management and the shocking aspersions cast on it would welcome a judicial investigation where he could prove his innocence of the foul charges levelled
Were there a modicum of truth in the disclosures made of vice and violence overt and covert in the goings on in Tihar such an institutional outrage would make our constitutional culture blush and our judicial punishment guilty  procedure
And on the materials placed before us there is ground enough to exercise our exceptional but undoubted jurisdiction to ensure some minimum of social hygiene and banishment of licentious excesses lest the sentence of court be frustrated in its dual ends of deterrence and rehabilitation by prison pathology
Briefly the petitioner alleges that his life in jail is subjected to intimidation by overbearing toughs  inside that he is forced to be party to misappropriation of jail funds by and bribery of officers that homosexual and sexual indulgence with the connivance of officials are going on that smuggling in and out is frequent and drug racket common that alcoholic and violent misconduct by gangs like those involved in Bank Robbery and other notorious cases are a menace to quieter prisoners and the whole goal of reformation of sentences is defeated by this supercrime syndrome
Maybe like Oscar Wilde the petitioner in flinging allegations considers that moderation is a fatal thing
Nothing succeeds like excess
Making a large margin for unveracious dilution still if a fragment of truth survives something is rotten in the state of Denmark 
This Courts  writ must remove from Tihar face such indelible stain and incurable wound
When police and prison torture is escalating in our human rights era courts owe a duty to society not to ignore such a dangerous reality
At this time the lack of law and order is especially of prime concern
Our courts must bear their share of blame and shame for this condition
Under our Constitution deprivation of personal liberty as penal policy is purposive and the Penal Code itself is valid because the imprisonment of the criminal is reasonable not arbitrary and is sanctioned as a measure of social defence and individual rehabilitation
A court sentence does not deprive the prisoner of his fundamental rights as a Constitution Bench in Sunil Batra s case recently expounded
933 To reform and deter the criminal and to work out that process geared to social defence the convict is cast into prison not to make him more hardened more brutal more cunning and dangerous to society
This raison d etre of penological institutions in our Gandhian country with humanism as basic to the constitutional scheme cannot be written off without peril
And so it is that after reading the fearful circumstances revealed in this case we focussed sharply right at the outset the grave issue Is a prison term in Tihar Jail a post graduate training in tough crime Is an invisible carser  mafia in defacto management of this penal institution Should every sentencing judge high and low hang his helpless head in frustration and humiliation because institutional aberrations and personnel perversions have sullied and stultified the justice of his sentence We have been told by counsel for the State that several hundreds of VIPs have ceremonially visited and of course complimented the jail management
These conducted tours cannot in themselves contradict the contention that this campus of correction has degenerated into a human zoo
We keep an open mind and examine the facts but must confess that the Tihar Jail has come up for unhappy judicial notice too often in the past
We must also stress that the human rights of common prisoners are at a discount and in our Socialist Republic moneyed B  class convicts operate to oppress the humbler inmates
Can there be inequality in prison too on the score of social and financial status Bank robbers in B  class because they are rich by robbery and nameless little man in C  class because they are only common Indians Article 14 is suffocated if this classification is permitted and yet that according to rule itself is prevalent as this Court has even in earlier cases pointed out
This Court must act will act to restore the rule of law and respect the residual fundamental rights of any harassed petitioner
We are aware that general charges and sweeping complaints may tarnish innocent officers
We do not intend to find fault with any until proof is forthcoming
We are conscious that correctional orientation and cautious humanization have changed the attitudes of many jail officials
To blame them is beyond our purpose or power but to protect the caged humans from torture gross or subtle beyond what the law permits is our function indeed our duty
From this perspective we may rapidly survey the circumstances and mould the reliefs
Prison Jurisprudence developed through case law and derived from constitutional law already exists
As a jurisdictional matter and background setter we may briefly refer to some of these aspects 934 before we discuss the controversial questions
In the Sunil Batra Case the Constitution Bench brushed aside the hands off prisons  doctrine upheld the fundamental rights of prisoners though circumscribed severely by the reality of lawful custody
Desai J speaking for three of his colleagues and broadly concurring with the fourth clarified two positions a that fundamental rights did not forsake prisoners and b that the penological purpose of sentence was importantly reformatory even though deterrent too
In a later case Sunil Batra vs Delhi Administration supra another bench explained The court has a continuing responsibility to ensure that the constitutional purpose of the deprivation is not defeated by the prison administration
In a few cases this validation of judicial invigilation of prisoners  condition has been voiced by this Court and finally reinforced by the Constitution Bench in Batra supra
The Court need not adopt a hands off attitude  in regard to the problem of prison administration
It is all the more so because a convict is in prison under the order and direction of the Court
Under the caption Retention of Authority over Prisoner by Sentencing Judge Krantz notes
As noted by Judge Lay in a Judicial Mandate Trial Magazine Nov Dec 1971 at p 15 It should be the responsibility of the court in imposing the sentence to set forth as it would in any equitable decree the end to be achieved and the specifics necessary to achieve that purpose
If then we are to have accountability in the execution of the sentence courts must make clear what is intended in the imposition of the sentence
Every sentence should be couched in terms similar to a mandatory injunction
In this manner the penology system is to be held to account if the government does not faithfully execute the order
In other words the sentencing court should be required to retain jurisdiction to ensure that the prison system responds to the purposes of the sentence
If it does not the sentencing court could arguably have the authority to demand compliance with 935 the sentence or even order the prisoner released for non compliance
Whether inside prison or outside a person shall not be deprived of his guaranteed freedom save by methods right just and fair 
A long discussion covering American rulings UN specifications of the Standard Minimum Rules for Prisons and the implications of articles 21 19 and 14 read in the light of Maneka Gandhi s case led this Court in Sunil Batra supra to accent on the habilitative value contained in Rule 58
of the International Standard Minimum Rules The purpose and justification of sentence of imprisonment or a similar measure deprivative of liberty is ultimately to protect society against crime
This end can only be achieved if the period of imprisonment is used to ensure so far as possible that upon his return to society the offender is not only willing but able to lead a law abiding and self supporting life
The action oriented conclusion in that judgment which bind the State need re emphasis since die hard practices persist
We repeat some of them here  Lawyers nominated by the District Magistrate Sessions Judge High Court and the Supreme Court will be given all facilities for interviews visits and confidential communication with prisoners subject to discipline and security considerations
This has roots in the visitorial and supervisory judicial role
The lawyers so designated shall be bound to make periodical visits and records and report to the concerned court results which have relevance to legal grievances
Within the next three months Grievance Deposit Boxes shall be maintained by or under the orders of the District Magistrate and the Sessions Judge which will be opened as frequently as is deemed fit and suitable action taken on complaints made
Access to such boxes shall be afforded to all prisoners
District Magistrates and Sessions Judges shall personally or through surrogates visit prisons in their jurisdiction and afford effective opportunities for ventilating legal grievances shall make expeditious enquiries there into and take suitable remedial action
In appropriate cases reports shall be made 936 to the High Court for the latter to initiate it found necessary habeas action
XX XX XX No solitary or punitive cell no hard labour or dietary change as painful additive no other punishment or denial of privileges and amenities no transfer to other prisons with penal consequences shall be imposed without judicial appraisal of the Sessions Judge and where such intimation on account of emergency is difficult such information shall be given within two days of the action
XX XX XX The State shall take early steps to prepare in Hindi a Prisoner s Handbook and circulate copies to bring legal awareness home to the inmates
Periodical jail bulletins stating how improvements and habilitative programmes are brought into the prison may create a fellow ship which will ease tensions
A prisoners  wall paper which will freely ventilate grievances will also reduce stress
All these are implementary of s61 of the Prisons Act
XX XX XX The prisoners  rights shall be protected by the court by its writ jurisdiction plus contempt power
To make this jurisdiction viable free legal services to the prisoner programmes shall be promoted by professional organisations recognised by the Court such as for eg Free Legal Aid Supreme Court Society
The District Bar shall we recommend keep a cell for prisoner relief
How far have these directives been implemented especially to the extent they affect the present petitioner We will examine it presently but before that some materials about this jail and its way of life is needed to appreciate where the truth lies as between assertions and denials
In the 2nd Sunil Batra case the Superintendent of the Tihar Jail testified A number of prisoners in the Tihar Jail are habitual offenders professional criminals who have been inmates of the Jail from time to time
It has been noticed that these types of prisoners have been able to develop a certain rapport with some 937 of the lower staff in the jail namely Head Warders Warders etc
and obtain certain facilities illegally including smuggling of number of items eg drugs etc
for their use
It may also submitted that to check smuggling of narcotic drugs against prisoners who indulge in such activities 30 cases of narcotic offences were got registered against the prisoners with the Janakpuri Police Station during this year
It may also be mentioned that due to paucity of accommodation the said jail is occupied by double the number of prisoners than it is otherwise authorised
In that very case the Court had occasion to observe on the materials present there Since many officers busy themselves with production of prisoners in court the case of the Superintendent is that the other prisoners try to do mischief make thefts of other prisoners who go to work smuggle things and even resort to assaults
 The crowning piece is that the jail officials themselves are allegedly in league with the criminals in the cells
That is there is a large network of criminals officials and non officials in the house of corrections Drug racket alcoholism smuggling violence theft unconstitutional punishment by way of solitary cellular life and transfer to other jails are not uncommon
 In that case Dr Chitale who appeared for the prisoner brought to our notice a literary work written by Shri Kuldip Nayar In Jail where the author has recorded   one could get as much money as one wanted from outside against a price
There was a money order and mail service that perhaps was more dependable than what the postal department could offer
For instance when a prisoner in my ward wanted two hundred rupees he sent a note through a warder to his people in old Delhi and in less than twenty four hours he had the money
He paid sixty six rupees as collecting charges thirty three per cent was the prescribed money order charges Dharma Teja the shipping magnate who served his sentence in Tihar for instance had thousands of rupees delivered to him we were told
And if one could pay the jail functionaries one could have all the comforts one sought
Teja had all the comforts he had an air cooler in his cell a radio cum record player set and even the facility of using the 938 phone
Haridas Mundhra a business man who was convicted of fraud was another rich man who spent some time in Tihar
Not only did he have all the facilities but he could also go out of the jail whenever he liked at times he would be out for several days and travel even up to Calcutta
All this of course cost a lot of money
An even richer prisoner was Ram Kishan Dalmia he spent most of his jail term in hospital
He was known for his generosity to jail authorities and one doctor received a car as a gift
But more than businessmen it was the smugglers jailed in Tihar who were lavish spenders
Their food came from Moti Mahal and their whisky from Connaught Place
They had not only wine but also women Babu ji not tarts but real society girls one warder said
The women would be brought in when the sahiblog went home for lunch and their empty offices became recreation rooms
Corruption in jail was so well organised and so systematic that everything went like clockwork once the price had been paid
Jail employees at almost all levels were involved and everyone s share was fixed
There was never a dispute there has to be the proverbial honour among thieves
 This backdrop to the Tihar lifestyle is disturbing enough
Have other States their Tihars The writ jurisdiction of this Court must be equal to the needs of human rights and human wrongs
Relying upon legal literature in the American jurisdiction especially the crystalised statement in American jurisprudence this Court has laid down  The writ is not and never has been a static narrow formalistic remedy
Its scope has grown to achieve its purpose the production of individuals against erosion of the right to be free from wrongful restraints on their liberty
Jural perspectives thus set make the Court an activist instrument of Jail Justice
We proceed on this basis to a consideration of the issues raised before us
But to clothe these issues with flesh and blood and to make abstract poignancies into concrete problems we may excerpt at random some of the allegations made by the petitioner perhaps by mixing fiction with fact
Even after making a liberal allowance for adulteration and distortion the miasmatic residue presses upon our judicial conscience to use the court processes and restore basic humanism inside this penal institution where sentences punitively 939 sent by court are subjects to unbearable tensions and torments on their physical and moral fibre thanks to the prison milieu being what it is
The petitioner states that he had sent to one of the Judges of this Court complaints about atrociously unwholesome
treatment in the jail on September 21 22 and 24 1979
He alleges that he had lodged a complaint against the Superintendent with the vigilance Department of the Delhi State
His further version is better projected by quoting a few paragraphs from his own petition That the Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent under a severe threat of dire consequences and infliction of punitive torture pressured the petitioner into signing an affidavit denying having lodged any such complaints in the Supreme Court the Delhi Administration and the Vigilance Department
That judging from the incidents of corruption torture and drug distribution there can be no two opinions about the Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent brought from the adjoining province of Haryana performing only in a manner of predators
Torture and drug distribution are merely the means to corruption to achieve their ultimate end
That there is a foreign convict confined in the Tihar Jail along with a woman who he claims to be his wife
They are both wanted by the Interpol
This man s criminal biography has been published in two books written by foreign authors wherein the criminal exploits of this criminal are admitted facts
He performs in the Tihar Jail as though he is the virtual administrator thereof
He retains a portable tape recorder strapped of his calf wherein he has filled incriminating evidence against the Superintendent and the Deputy Superintendent
By virtue of this black mailing hold upon them he enjoys the following privileges a Free movements all over the jail compound from his own place of confinement in Ward 2
b At least a dozen visits are made by him daily to the B class Ward 14
Here he holds periodic conferences to plan his furtive strategy in company with three intimate associates all co accused in the six lacs Bank Van Robbery Case
c The petitioner has himself seen the tape recorder kept hidden by him and his B class criminal associates
940 d This foreigner is especially encouraged and protected by the Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent
He can be seen visiting these officers and holding private conferences in the private retiring rooms at the back of their offices almost daily
e So much so that the Deputy Superintendent even allows this foreign convict to consummate sexual intercourse in his private back room from time to time the Deputy Superintendent performing as though he were this foreign convict s pimp
f Naturally for conceding such and many more extra facilities both the Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent charge heavy amounts from his foreign convict who has now struck rich after the publication of his two books B  Class status for prisoners is going by averments in the petition a pampering process much abused by officials and in a class  culture obnoxious to the Constitution
Equality before the law cannot co exist with affluent black guards being looked after with luxury and solicitude and lawly indigents being treated as pariahs inside the prison
There is reference in the petition to the three dangerous criminals involved in a big Bank Van Robbery Case being lodged in Ward 14 as B  Class VIPs who have on top of other advantages certain facilities like being
Specially allowed the privilege of having two young and handsome habitual drug addicts locked in his cell at night to serve him as passive agents for the appeasement of his homosexual lust e has been provided with a TV set in his cell exclusively for his and his associates  entertainment f smuggled in alcohol is being regularly consumed by the so locked together several prisoners in his cell being rich it is these so locked together associates who finance the drug and alcohol racket
Another shocking allegation of corruption is that even from sentences undergoing rigorous imprisonment money is collected by high officials for allotting hard labour of soft types  in the course of serving rigorous imprisonment and placing the convicts in the general barracks or private cells
 The petitioner further complains of having been physically assaulted and the averments relating to it run thus 941 That the agents appointed by the Superintendent and Dy
Superintendent to sell narcotics in the Tihar Jail written complaint to this effect lodged with the Superintendent who passed the matter on far enquiry to the Dy
Superintendent who in turn took no disciplinary action physically assaulted the petitioner on December 25 1979 and January 6 and February 7 1980
However no action has so far been taken and the culprits being the agents of the Superintendent and Dy
Superintendent were skilfully shielded
In fact the matter was deliberately suppressed because of the involved personal financial interests of the officers
Apart from these statements there are serious charges of misappropriation corruption bribery and the like and the artful stratagem adopted in that behalf
Shri Markandeya contended that there was truth in the allegation that mandrex charas and opium are freely available thereby trying to establish that the sub culture in the Central Jail far from being reformatory is de formatory of the morals of the prisoners
Indeed many more things are mentioned in support of the petition including newspaper reports of the vices of the jail
But we arenot concerned in these proceedings with a general enquiry into the jail affairs and therefore confine ourselves to what has bearing on the ill treatment of the petitioner
It is basic fairness that we should not come to any conclusion without remembering the fact that detailed counter affidavits have been filed on behalf of the Superintendent and the Dy
Superintendent with supportive materials calculated to exonerate them
Even so it is fairly clear that many vices including drug rackets occasional violence smuggling and trafficking in many other impermissible things have a hospitable home in this penitentiary
The Administration has conscientious responsibility for the decency and dignity for correctional obligations and social hygiene inside prison houses and the time is long overdue for a thorough overhaul of the prison management in Tihar
In an earlier judgment late in 1979 WP 1009 of 1979 the Supreme Court had in the strongest terms stressed the imperative and urgent need for carrying out certain reforms and added the imprimatur of the court s authority for certain directives contained in Sunil Batra s case
Shri Markandeya complained that the injunctions of this Court have not been carried out while a contrary version is given by the Superintendent
While we express our consternation at the deterioration of the conditions in Tihar Jail despite its being in the capital city of the country we are disturbed that no major measure of reform has yet taken place in the prison order or 942 for that matter in the prison manual
Such indifference cannot deter the writ of this court running into the prison and compelling compliance however tough the resistance however high the officials
Natural justice and the limitations of court time persuade us to avoid a detailed investigation into the charges and the defences by us directly
We therefore adopt the alternative and more feasible method of directing a judicial enquiry by the District  Sessions Judge of Delhi who is a member of the Board of Visitors and whose responsibilities in this behalf have been outlined by us in both the Sunil Batra cases
The petition contains specific grievances of physical assault and psychic torture of tense atmosphere and delinquent pressure for which some B  class prisoners and superior officers are responsible
This matter has to be investigated
Furthermore in the Sunil Batra case Supra precisely to obviate the pernicious potential of prison torture remedial mechanics had been worked out formulated and translated into mandates
Whether these have been complied with and if not why not require to be enquired into
When this Court issues a writ recusant parties will have to pay the penalty for noncompliance
This means the violations and violators will have to be identified after due investigation
Having regard to all these instructions we make the following directions 1 The District and Sessions Judge Delhi will within three months from today hold an open enquiry within the jail premises into the allegations contained in the petition of the prisoner Kaushik and in the report submitted to this Court by Advocate Shri Subodh Markandeya
2 He will further enquire with specific reference to the charges of personal assault and compulsion for collaboration in canteen swindle and otherwise made by the prisoner against the Superintendent and the Dy
Superintendent
3 He will go into the question of the directives issued in the concluding portion of Sunil Batra s case supra with a view to ascertain whether these directions have been substantially complied with and to the extent there is shortfall or default whether there is any reasonable explanation therefor
4 Being a Visitor of the jail it is part of his visitorial functions for the Sessions Judge to acquaint himself with the condition of tension vice and violence and prisoners  grievances
He will take this opportunity to enquire into those aspects also with a view to suggest remedial action
943 The result of this investigation will be crystalised in the shape of findings followed by specific instructions with a view to see that the petitioner and others like him are not burdened by additional acerbities and harsher pressures than a legal sentence of rigorous imprisonment geared to reformation and intended for deterrence necessarily implied
The Sessions Judge will also give a specific time to the jail authorities for carrying out his directives and after the period for compliance is over will make a fresh visit to verify whether those mandates have been fulfilled
In the event of non fulfilment a report will be made to this Court before September 30 1980 whereupon appropriate action to enforce compliance will be taken by this Court in its jurisdiction
We may make it perfectly clear that the Sessions Judge will allow any person or official who wants to make any representations to him in the course of his enquiry to meet him publicly or in camera but outsiders and strangers will not be allowed except Shri Subodh Markandeya or Government s Counsel
Of course it will be open to the Judge if he considers that such a step will advance the interests of justice to allow any other public organisation or legal aid society
The sessions judge whom we have charged with the responsibility for enquiry will make constructive suggestions to protect prisoners  rights and to promote prisoners  habilitation and thus disprove Oscar Wilde This two I know and wise it were If each could know the same That every prison that men build is built with bricks of shame And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers main
     The wilest deeds like poison weeds Blowm well in prison air It is only what is good in Man  That wastes and withers there
The Ballad of Reading Gaol In this context the focus of the Sessions Judge should not be solely upon the warden and warders of the jail but also on the medical officers whose connivance may perhaps explain how drugs like mandraix are officially indented
944 Our immediate concern is to protect the petitioner and others of his ill from physical assaults by fellow prisoner or warders from moral stress by being forced to assist in falsification and manipulation for canteen sales misappropriation from discrimination in being subjected to hard labour of a harsh type if he does not oblige the B  class bosses  or senior officer s from pressure against transmitting grievances to the Sessions Judge through the Grievance Box or directly to this Court by post
But remedial perspectives and procedures to be successful must be holistic collective and not individualistic
So the human canvas has to be spread wider the diagnosis has to be deeper and the recipe must senitize the environ
The crisis in our prisons the collapse of values in these campuses the inner tension red in tooth and claw  the corruption that makes for sensual indulgences the barbarities that harden the convicts and never heal them all these processes can be reviewed and humanization resorted if only if our philosophy towards crime and punishment change
If vengeance is the spirit of punishment violence will be the prison way of life
That is why Karl Menninger in his The Crime of Punishment exposes this folly  Punishment is in part an attitude a philosophy
It is the deliberate infliction of pain in addition to or in lieu of penalty  What is gained for anybody when a man who has forged a check for sixty dollars is sentenced to the penitentiary for thirty years The judge s rationalization was that the man had offended in this way twice before  and had served shorter sentence without reforming  This is not penalization
This is not correction
This is not public protection
This is not reformation
It is sadistic persecution of the helpless at public expense justified by the punishment principle
From this new angle the hospital setting approach to prisons Gandhiji advocated the therapeutic touch penologists argue for and the raising of the level of consciousness institutional and individual of officials and prisoners all these woven into a composite strategy may well be the highway to higher awareness and socialisation of feeling inside correctional homes
This technology takes us to method like transcendental meditation self expression through work facilities for studies and artistic development
The warden s drill the warder s billy or the VIP s good chit  cannot work magic
Shri Markandeya s further report substantiates the thesis we have set out that prison violence and escalating criminality directly 945 flow from the anti rehabilitative strategies and counter productive life style prevalent in the Tihar
The VIP criminals in league with other prison toughs are alleged to have organised the beating up of one prisoner
The part of the prison officials may or may not be direct but is surely vicarious
Not until a transformation in the awareness of the top brass not until new techniques of instilling dignity and mutual respect among the prisoners not until a hospital setting and curative techniques pervade the staff and the inmates can there be any human right conscious reformation in the Tihar prison
All that we need say is that in the enquiry that we have directed the Sessions Judge to hold this perspective will inform his interrogations and investigations
We have drawn the broad lines indicative of the direction of correction and leave it at that
The fundamental fact of prison reforms comes from our constitutional recognition that every prisoner is a person and personhood holds the human potential which if unfolded makes a robber a Valmiki and a sinner a saint
SR Petition allowed


Summary:
Kaushik a lifer lodged in Tihar Jail moved a quasi habeas corpus petition bitterly complaining with facts and figures of the terror and horror physical and psychic let loose on him and other jail mates by a crypto criminal combination of senior officials and superior prisoners thereby making the prison life within that walled world such a trauma and torment the law never meant under the sentence suffered at the hands of the Court
Briefly the petitioner alleged that his life in jail is subjected to intimidation by overbearing toughs  inside that he is forced to be party to misappropriation of jail funds by and bribery of officers that homosexual and sexual indolence with the connivance of officials are going on that smuggling in and out is frequent and drug racket common that alcoholic and violent misconduct by gangs like those involved in Bank Robbery and other notorious cases are a menace to quieter prisoners and the whole goal of reformation of sentences is defeated by this supercrime syndrome
On this the Court appointed Sri Subodh Markedneya as amicus curiae to inquire into the allegations and submit a report
The respondent Delhi Administration transversed the grounds in the petition
Allowing the petitions the Court  HELD 1
Prison torture is not beyond the reach of the Supreme Court in its constitutional jurisdiction
931 F Were there a modicum of truth in the disclosures made of vice and violence overt and covert in the goings on in Tihar such an institutional outrage would make our constitutional culture blush and our judicial punishment guilty  procedure
And on the materials placed before the Court there is ground enough to exercise our exceptional but undoubted jurisdiction to ensure some minimum of social hygiene and banishment of licentious excesses lest the sentence of court be frustrated in its dual ends of deterrence and rehabilitation by prison pathology
932 B C 2
When police and prison torture is escalating in our human rights era courts owe a duty to society not to ignore such a dangerous reality
Under our Constitution deprivation of personal liberty as penal policy is purposive and the Penal Code itself is valid because the imprisonment of the criminal is reasonable not arbitrary and is sanctioned as a measure of social defence and individual rehabilitation
A court sentence does not deprive the prisoner of his fundamental rights
To reform and deter the criminal and to work out that process geared to social defence the convict is cast into prison not to make him more hardened more brutal more cunning and dangerous to society
This 930 raison d etre of penological institutions in our Gandhian country with humanism as basic to the constitutional scheme cannot be written off without peril
A Prison term in Tihar Jail is not a post graduate training in tough crime
No sentencing judge high and low should hang his helpless head in frustration and humiliation because institutional alternations and personnel perversions have sullied and stultified the justice of his sentence
932 F H 933 A B C Sunil Batra vs State Delhi Administration   referred to
The human rights of common prisoners are at a discount and in our Socialist Republic moneyed B  class convicts operate to oppress the humbler inmates
There cannot be inequality in prison too on the score of social and financial status
Bank robbers in B  class because they are rich by robbery and nameless little men in C  class because they are only common Indians Article 14 is suffocated if this classification is permitted and yet that according to rule itself is prevalent
Therefore the Supreme Court must act will act to restore the rule of the law and respect of the residual fundamental rights of any harassed petitioner
933 D F
The writ jurisdiction of the Supreme Court must be equal to the needs of human rights and human wrongs
In Sunil Batra 1 vs Delhi Administration 1979 1 SCR 393 this Court held that fundamental rights did not forsake prisoners and that the penological purpose of sentence was importantly reformatory even though deterrent too
In the second Sunil Batra s case after a long discussion covering
American Rulings UN specifications of the Standard Minimum Rules for prisons and the implications of Articles 21 19 and 14 read in the light of Maneka Gandhi s case 1978 1 SCC 248 this Court accented on the habilitative value contained in Rule 58 of the International Standard Minimum Rules
Jural justice thus set make the Court an activist instrument of jail Justice
934 A B 935 A B 938 G 5
In the instant case even after making a liberal allowance for adulteration and distortion the miasmatic process and restore basic humanism inside this penal institution where sentences punitively sent by court are subjected to unbearable tensions and torments on their physical and moral fibre thanks to the prison milieu being what it is
938 G H 939 A B  class status for prisoners is going by averments in the petition a pampering process much abused by officials and in a class  culture obnoxious to the Constitution
Equality before the law cannot co exist with affluent blackguards being looked after with luxury and solicitude and lawly indigents being treated as pariahs inside the prison
There is reference in the petition to the three dangerous criminals involved in a big Bank Van Robbery Case being lodged in Ward 14 as B  Class VIPs who have on top of other advantages certain facilities
It is fairly clear that many vices including drug rackets occasional violence smuggling and trafficking in many other impermissible things have hospitable home in this penitentiary
The Administration has conscientious responsibility for the decency and dignity for correctional obligations and social hygiene inside prison houses and the time is long overdue for a thorough overhaul of the prison management in Tihar
940 C E 941 E F
The crisis in our prisons the collapse of values in these campuses the inner tension red in tooth and class  the corruption that makes for sensual indul 931 gences the barbarities that harden the convicts and never heal them all these processes can be reviewed and humanization resorted if only if our philosophy towards crime and punishment change
If vengeance is the spirit of punishment violence will be the prison way of life
944 C D The Court keeping in view the principle of natural justice and the limitation of Court time directed a judicial enquiry by the District and Sessions Judge of Delhi who is a member of the Board of Visitors stressing the points to be covered in particular