Supreme Court asks states/UTs to report statistics on vacant posts in prisons

The court also directed states and union territories to indicate steps being taken to fill up the vacant posts of jail officials and staff

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked state governments to submit statistics on vacant posts of prison staff, observing that the vacancies in jails do not augur well for prisoners, particularly when the jails are overcrowded.

The court was hearing a suo motu petition on the conditions of jails across the country (REUTERS File Photo)

A bench of justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti also directed all states and union territories to indicate steps being to fill up the sanctioned posts of jail officials and staff. The responses will be considered by the top court after 12 weeks.

“All states and UTs shall gather information also on vacancies and if any steps are being taken or is underway to fill it,” the court said, seeking separate data on the strength of jail officers and other staffers.

The court was hearing a suo motu petition on the conditions of jails across the country where statistics produced by senior advocate Gaurav Agarwal, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae, showed that the vacancies, on an average, were 30%. According to Prison Statistics 2018, there were 77,216 sanctioned posts and 24,588 vacancies. The 2022 edition of the Prison Statistics indicated the vacancies increased to 27,603 with the sanctioned strength of prison employees rising to 91,181.

Noting the gap, the bench said, “When jails are overcrowded and prisons are under-staffed, it is bound to escalate difficulties for convicts and undertrials lodged in jails. States must start the process of filling up vacancies as it really affects the prisoners being looked after.”

Agarwal said last week, he wrote to the Director General of Prisons of Kerala, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and Delhi to seek data on vacancies in jails. He received a response from Bihar which indicated that the state had a sanctioned strength of 9,349 for prisons and 4,573, nearly 50% of the sanctioned posts, were vacant.

He also interacted with the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) to assess the situation across jails. “The issue of huge vacancies of jail staff across the country is seriously affecting the management of the jails and more importantly the physical and mental health and rehabilitation of prisoners,” Agarwal said.

NALSA data showed that inside a single jail in Nagpur, 193 out of 437 sanctioned posts, almost 40% of the posts were vacant. “This seriously affects the discipline in jails, production of the accused before the court, rehabilitation programmes,” he added.

The bench said, “Undoubtedly vacancies are there and the government may have its own compulsions. While it may not be feasible for the government to fill up all sanctioned vacancies in jails, it would be necessary for this court to obtain information on the total cadre strength and the number of vacancies in jails or correctional homes in the country.”

The court also directed that its order be sent to lawyers appearing for all states and UTs. At the same time, it also reminded the states of its earlier order directing them to process the release of undertrial prisoners under a beneficial provision of Section 479 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Samhita (BNSS) which allows an undertrial, who is a first-time offender, to be released on completion of one-third of the maximum sentence for the crime and for other undertrials, half of the sentence.

Agarwal pointed out that so far only UP and Bihar have shared data. UP released about 61 prisoners under Section 479 while Bihar released 28 undertrials. Some states suggested they were still in the process of identification of cases that met this criteria while states like Tripura said they had no undertrial prisoner qualifying for release.