The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has intervened in a petition before the Calcutta High Court seeking improvement of conditions of women, children and transgender persons lodged in the prisons of West Bengal.
The organisation has intervened an ongoing public interest litigation since 2017.
The matter came up when a lawyer mentioned a plea pertaining to the pregnancies of female prisoners and the substantial population of children living along with their mothers in prisons across West Bengal.
The petition sought to prohibit the entry of male staff into female prisons.
The Division Bench presided over by Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam re-assigned the matter to the Division Bench presided over by Justice Joymalya Bagchi, who emphasised that the dignity of women prisoners ought to be maintained in proceedings.
He further said that the identity of women prisoners should be kept confidential in order to avoid double-victimisation of inmates.
The intervention application by PUCL sought an investigation presided over by an independent committee into the condition of women and children in prisons across the state.
The application said the State of West Bengal had not complied with any recommendations made by the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Women & Child Development, or the National Commission of Women (NCW), etc.
It further said that the West Bengal government had not organised any camps on sexual awareness or sexual healthcare rights of women detenues.
Further, the State had neither formed any advisory committee, nor recruited sufficient female staff in women prisons.
It said the State did not have more than one women prison for the women and children in custody.
It prayed for the implementation of various guidelines on prison reform laid down in the Amitava Roy report, as well as the Modern Prison Manual, 2016, over the issue of women and children languishing in jail.
The petition further sought directions for a detailed study of women and children, as well as transgender persons, both Indian and foreign in prisons across the State, to understand prison-specific and gender-specific issues faced by the prisoners.
It also sought inter alia directions for the formation of a court-monitored independent committee to conduct a detailed study on women, children, and transgender persons in prisons, to form a detailed report on the issues faced by these persons in prisons across the State.