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The Supreme Court today (November 3) expressed its disappointment that 23 States/Union Territories (UTs) are yet to respond to the information sought by the Union Home Ministry in the suo motu case on caste-based discrimination inside prisons. It has, therefore, given them one last opportunity to respond.

A bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manmohan warned that if the States/UTs fail to respond by the next date of hearing (January 13), it would be “compelled to direct the Chief Secretaries/Principal Secretaries of all the States/UTs to personally remain present before this Court.” The observations were made while hearing the matter (In Re: Discrimination Inside Prisons in India) in which Senior Advocate (Dr) S Muralidhar is appointed as the Amicus Curiae.

The case arose from the Supreme Court's judgment in Sukanya Shantha v Union of India and Others, wherein directions were issued to address caste-based discrimination in prisons. The Court later took up this suo motu cognizance to monitor the compliance.

In July this year, the Court took on record a detailed Status Report which showed the written responses still awaited from several States/UTs on the method of collection and transmission of caste data to the NCRB; deletion of caste columns in all prison registers and forms; outsourcing of cleaning work; compliance with the guidelines in Arnesh Kumar and Amanatullah Khan; notifications constituting Boards of Visitors district-wise; the status of new Acts/Rules/Manuals proposed by States/UTs; and the status of amendments to offending provisions in the Acts/Rules/Manuals.

The Court had asked Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati to take up the matter with all States/UTs and gather the information at the earliest. Muralidhar also apprised the Court that no State/UT had constituted a Board of Visitors (BoVs) district-wise, as directed in July this year.

It had directed all State Governments/UTs to constitute district-wise BoVs, headed by the Principal District Judge of that particular District, within a period of four weeks from the date of order. In September this year, the Court noted some progress in constituting the BoVs. It was informed that only a few districts of different States had constituted them.

Today, the bench took serious note of the non-compliance and warned for personal presence of the officials if the report is not filed by the next date of hearing.

“We give one last opportunity to all the states to immediately respond to the various queries raised by the Union on different issues to enable the Union to file one composite report highlighting what steps have been taken so far in pursuance of various directions issued by this Board, and what further is required to be done to give meaningful effect to the cause which this Court has taken up. We make it clear today that by the next date of hearing if the states do not respond, we shall be compelled to direct the Chief Secretaries slash Principal Secretaries of all the States/UTs to personally remain present before this Court.”

The matter is next listed for January 13, 2027.

Appearances:

Dr. S. Muralidhar, Sr. Adv. as Amicus Curiae

For Respondents: Ms. Rashmi Nandakumar, AOR; Ms. Yashmita Pandey, Adv.; Mr. Bharat Bagla, Adv.; Mr. Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Adv.; Mr. Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, AOR; Mr. Shrirang B. Varma, Adv.; Mr. Alok Sangwan, Sr. A.A.G.; Mr. Samar Vijay Singh, AOR; Mr. Sumit Kumar Sharma, Adv.; Mr. Rajat Sangwan, Adv.; Ms. Sabarni Som, Adv.; Mr. Aman Dev Sharma, Adv.; Mr. Deepak Aggarwal, Adv.; Mr. Varun Prasad, Adv.; Mr. Anil Kumar, Adv.; Mr. Naveen Kumar Singhal, Adv.; Mr. Ankit Roy, AOR; Ms. Mrinalini Ramesh, Adv.; Ms. Jaya Pandey, Adv.; Mr. Vishnu Sharma, Adv.; Mr. Shantanu Sagar, AOR; Mr. Anil Kumar, Adv.; Mr. Gunjesh Ranjan, Adv.; Mr. Prakash Kumar Mangalam, Adv.; Mr. Abhishek Kumar Gupta, Adv.; Ms. Anshala Verma, Adv.; Mr. Atul Jha, A.A.G.; Mr. Abhishek Pandey, Standing Counsel, Adv.; Mr. Vinayak Sharma, Adv.; Mr. Siddhartha Sinha, AOR; Mr. Pashupathi Nath Razdan, AOR; Ms. Maitree Jagat Joshi, Adv.; Mr. Astik Gupta, Adv.; Ms. Akanksha Tomar, Adv.; Ms. Swati Ghildiyal, AOR; Ms. Neha Singh, Adv.; Mr. Aravindh S., AOR; Mr. Aadithya Aravindh, Adv.; Ms. Sugandha Anand, AOR; Ms. K. Enatoli Sema, AOR; Mr. Amit Kumar Singh, Adv.; Ms. Chubalemla Chang, Adv.; Mr. Prang Newmai, Adv.; Ms. Yanmi Phazang, Adv.; Ms. Nidhi Jaswal, AOR; Ms. Savita Singh, AOR; Mr. Amresh Kumar, Adv.; Mr. Satya Dev Singh, Adv.; Mr. Prasanna S., AOR; Ms. Injila Muslim Zaidi, Adv.; Mr. Maamidi Ashish Reddy, Adv.; Mr. Prasanna B, Adv.; Ms. Ishita Tulsyan, Adv.; Mr. Shuvodeep Roy, AOR; Mr. Saurabh Tripathi, Adv.; Mr. Deepayan Dutta, Adv.; Mr. Guntur Pramod Kumar, AOR; Ms. Prerna Singh, Adv.; Mr. Dhruv Yadav, Adv.; Mr. Samir Ali Khan, AOR; Mr. Pranjal Sharma, Adv.; Mr. Kashif Irshad Khan Faridi, Adv.; Ms. Devina Sehgal, AOR; Mr. Srikanth Varma Mudunuru, Adv.; Mr. Abhishek Atrey, AOR; Dr. Abhishek Atrey, Adv.; Ms. Ishita Bist, Adv.; Mr. Navneet Gupta, Adv.; Mr. Brijesh Kumar, Adv.; Ms. Vidyottma Jha, Adv.; Mr. Uddyam Mukherjee, AOR; Mr. Swapnil Pattanayak, Adv.; Ms. Kratika Kushwaha, Adv.; Ms. Meghna Nag, Adv.; Mr. Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar, AOR; Mr. Karun Shamra, Adv.; Ms. Anupama Ngangom, Adv.; Ms. Rajkumari Divyasana, Adv.; Mr. Amit Kumar, Advocate General; Mr. Avijit Mani Tripathi, AOR; Mr. Z.H. Isaac Haiding, Adv.; Mr. T.k. Nayak, Adv.; Ms. Marbiang Khongwir, Adv.; Mr. Aditya Kumar, Adv.; Mr. Binay Kumar, AOR; Mr. Kumar Sambhrant Krishna, Adv.; Mr. Akhileshwar Jha, Adv.; Mr. Sushant, Adv.; Ms. Aishwarya Bhati, A.S.G.; Mr. Kanu Agrawal, Adv.; Mr. Shuvodeep Roy, Adv.; Mr. Bhuvan Kapoor, Adv.; Mr. Digvijay Dam, Adv.; Mr. Chitrangda Rashtravara, Adv.; Mr. Arvind Kumar Sharma, AOR; Mr. Dr Arun Kumar Yadav, Adv.; Mr. Aljo K. Joseph, AOR; Mr. Sashwat Mishra, Adv.; Mr. Ajay M, Adv.; Ms. Eliza Barr, Adv.; Ms. Akansha, AOR; Ms. Anjali Saxena, Adv.; Mr. Govind Sharma, Adv.; Mr. Krishna Kant Dubey, Adv.; Mr. Varun Chugh, Adv.; Mr. Bhuvan Kapoor, Adv.; Mr. Mukesh K Verma, Adv.; Mr. Harish Pandey, Adv.; Mr. Shashwat Parihar, Adv.; Mr. Yogesh Vats, Adv.; Mr. Shreekant Neelappa Terdal, AOR; Mr. Sameer Abhyankar, AOR; Ms. Yachna Sharma, Adv.; Mr. Aakash Thakur, Adv.; Mr. Chander Uday Singh, Sr. Adv.; Mr. Akshay Sapre, Adv.; Mr. Yash S. Vijay, AOR; Ms. Katyayini Suhrud, Adv.; Ms. Nikita Sonavane, Adv.; Dr. Malavika Prasad, Adv.; Ms. Spoorthi Cotha, Adv.; Mr. Sagar Soni, Adv.; Mr. Shikhar Aggarwal, Adv.; Mr. Joshua Tom Thomas, Adv.; Mr. Pradeep Misra, AOR; Mr. Daleep Dhyani, Adv.; Mr. Anupam Misra, Adv.; Mr. Suraj Singh, Adv.; Mr. Anando Mukherjee, AOR; Mr. Anando Mukherjee For State Of Mizoram, A.A.G.; Mr. Shwetank Singh, Adv.; Mr. Utkarsh Anand, Adv.; Mr. Shiv Mangal Sharma, A.A.G.; Ms. Sonali Gaur, Adv.; Mr. Saurabh Rajpal, AOR; Mr. Bhakti Vardhan Singh, AOR; Mr. Talha Abdul Rehman, D.A.G.; Ms. Baani Khanna, AOR; Mr. Robin Singh, Adv.; Mr. Kapil Balwani, Adv.; Ms. Komal Thakkar, Adv.; Ms. Tejal Tapaswani Nagauri, Adv.; Mr. Shashank Garg, Sr. Adv.; Mr. Aman Gupta, AOR; Mr. Prithviraj Oberoi, Adv.; Mr. Anup Kashyap, Adv.; Mr. Divyam Kandhari, Adv.; Ms. Patil Rekha Chandra Gouda, AOR; Mr. Pawan Kumar Saxena, Adv.; Mr. Ankit Bhatnagar, Adv.; Mr. Balajee Kotgire, Adv.; Mr. Hira Singh Rawat, Adv.; Mr. Ravi Bhushan Pandey, Adv.; Mr. Rajesh Gulab Inamdar, AOR; Mr. Shashwat Anand, Adv.; Mr. Ritik Grover, Adv.; Mr. B.L.N. Sanjit, Adv.; Ms. Rakshita Singh, Adv.; Ms. Sonal Priya, Adv.; Ms. Rupali Samuel, AOR; Ms. Aradhya Trivedi, Adv.; Ms. K.V. Vinaya, Adv.

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