Discrimination in Prisons

Case Description

On 10 December 2020, journalist Sukanya Shantha reported an investigative story supported by the Pulitzer Centre, which revealed widespread caste-based discrimination in Indian prisons. It highlighted discriminatory rules in prison manuals which called for barrack segregation and work allocation on the basis of caste.

On 12 December 2023, Shantha filed a writ petition challenging various state prison manuals and rules that perpetuated caste-based labour division and. barrack segregation. The writ also challenged rules that labelled Denotified and Nomadic Tribe (DNT) communities as “habitual offenders”, a colonial-era terminology. The petition contended that the rules infringed Articles 14, 15, 17, 21 and 23 of the Constitution.

On 3 October 2024, a bench of former Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra held that the existing manuals and rules violated the fundamental rights of prisoners. The Court directed the Union government and states to revise their prison manuals and rules and remove any casteist connotations from them. The Court also directed the Union to make changes to the Model Prison Manual, 2016, and the Model Prison and Correctional Services Act, 2023 within three months.

The bench also directed the governments of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh to revise their prison manuals and rules within three months as they violated Articles 14, 15, 17, 21 and 23.
The judgement also stated that the Court had taken suo moto cognisance of discrimination in prisons on the basis of caste, gender and disability under the cause title ‘In re: Discrimination inside prisons in India’. It directed the Union and state governments to submit a compliance report on the first hearing date of the suo moto case, which was listed to be heard three months from the date of the judgement. 

The bench noted that references to ‘habitual offenders’ in the manuals must be in accordance with habitual offender legislations in different states. Such state legislations define “habitual offender” in a manner that does not refer to their caste-location or stereotypes associated with their caste-location. For instance, the Rajasthan Habitual Offenders Act, 1953, describes a ‘habitual offender’ as: 

“a person who, during any continuous period of five years, whether before or after the 15th day of September, 1952 or partly before and partly after the said day, has been sentenced on conviction on not less than three occasion since he attained the age of eighteen years to a substantive term of imprisonment for any one or more of the scheduled offences committed on different occasions and not so connected together as to form parts of the same transaction, such sentence not having been reversed in appeal or revision.” 

Even if states do not have habitual offender legislations like Rajasthan, they have been directed to amend their manuals and rules to eliminate the stereotyping of DNT communities. The bench also directed the police to follow the Court’s directions in Arnesh Kumar v State of Bihar (2014) and Amanatullah Khan v Commissioner of Police, Delhi (2024) to ensure that DNT groups do not face arbitrary arrest.

The Court also directed the National Legal Services Authority to submit a joint status report, based on the collective status reports of various State Legal Services Authorities (SLSAs) on the prevailing situation of caste-based discrimination in prisons. The SLSAs status reports, in turn, would be based on regular inspections undertaken by the SLSAs and the Board of Visitors (formed under the Model Prison Manual, 2016 to identify caste-based discrimination).

On 15 January 2025, a bench of Justices Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan issued notice in the suo moto matter.

On 27 January 2025, Senior Advocate S. Muralidhar and Advocate Disha Wadekar, representing Shantha, who has now joined as the intervenor, stated that the compliance reports had not yet been submitted despite the expiry of the three-month period. They made a similar observation regarding the joint status report sought from NALSA. The bench stated that it would “give one last opportunity” to the states and Union government to submit the compliance reports within the next two weeks. It also directed NALSA to file its joint status report by the next hearing.