Deplorable conditions: SC directs provincial jail chiefs to visit prisons

CJ Chaudhry snubs police and jail authorities of four provinces.

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the secretaries of Home, Health, Social Welfare and Inspectors General of Prisons of all the four provinces to physically visit the jails in their areas and submit reports to district and sessions judges of the districts.

The district and sessions judges have been ordered to submit their separate reports at the SC registrar office within two weeks.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry heard the suo motu case on the plight of prison conditions; a case which has been pending for the last 10 years, and from time to time, reports had been filed stating that the facilities being provided to the jail inmates were abhorrent and horrendous.

During the proceedings, the chief justice snubbed the police and jail authorities of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Balochistan and said that the jail circumstances were pathetic. Justice Chaudhry said that the overcrowding in jails was due to non-submission of ‘challans’ in the trial courts on time.



The bench stated that there were reports about health risks, lack of medical treatment, drug use, corruption and the availability of arms and ammunition, including mobile phones in the jurisdiction of jails.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on June 2, 2013 visited Central Jail Mianwali along with Chief Justice Lahore High Court, Justice Umer Atta Bandial, Registrar Lahore High Court, Secretary Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan, District and Sessions Judge Mianwali, Chief Secretary Punjab, Inspector General of Prisons and had expressed extreme dissatisfaction over the condition of jail inmates.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2013.