New Delhi: The Union home ministry has revised the prison manual rules to check discrimination, classification and segregation of jail inmates on the basis of caste. In a communication issued on December 30, the home ministry said, “It shall be strictly ensured that there is no discrimination/classification/segregation of prisoners on the basis of their caste.”
The letter also noted that there should be no discrimination in allotment of any duty/work to prison inmates on the basis of their caste.
The amendment comes in light of the October 3, 2024, judgement of the Supreme Court regarding caste-based discrimination of prisoners. The court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed by Sukanya Shantha, journalist with The Wire, regarding the provisions in prison manuals in states such as Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala that legitimised caste inequalities. Her 2020 report ‘From Segregation to Labour, Manu’s Caste Law Governs the Indian Prison System‘ formed the basis of the plea.
The case was fought pro bono by lawyers, including senior counsel S Muralidhar, Advocate Disha Wadekar and S Prasanna. The top court declared that such caste-based provisions in prison manuals are unconstitutional, and directed all states and union territories to revise their prison manuals.
The changes have been made in a chapter titled ‘Miscellaneous’ of the Model Prisons and Correctional Services Act, 2023, under the heading ‘Prohibition of caste-based discrimination in Prisons and Correctional Institutions’ as Section 55(A).
Regarding exploitation, the letter also said that the provisions of ‘The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013’ shall have a binding effect even in Prisons and Correctional Institutions. “Manual scavenging or hazardous cleaning of a sewer or a septic tank inside a prison shall not be permitted,” it stated.
While manual scavenging is prohibited under the law, its practice, as found in The Wire’s investigation, remains rampant across prisons in India. The Model Prison Manual had remained silent on its existence until now.
Home ministry’s letter for amendment in the Model Prison Manual, 2016 and the Model Prisons
and Correctional Services Act, 2023.
Further, the ministry has revised the definition of habitual offenders in the manual following the court’s order to separate habitual offenders from casual prisoners. The new definition goes, “Habitual offender means a person who during any continuous period of five years, has been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment on more than two occasions on account of any one or more of the offences committed on different occasions and not constituting parts of same transaction, such sentence not having been reversed in appeal or review.”
This is perhaps the first judgement by the Supreme Court that addresses the criminalisation of the denotified and nomadic communities in India.
The term “habitual offender” has deep-rooted prejudices and is often used interchangeably to describe denotified and nomadic tribes. Several provisions in many state prison manuals explicitly identify “wandering tribes” and “criminal tribes” as communities that should be discriminated against and deprived of the special provisions available to other communities.