CHENNAI: The Madras High Court directed the Prison Department to formulate rules and guidelines for the proper treatment of foreign prisoners in the jails in Tamil Nadu.

When the division bench of Justice SM Subramaniam and Justice M Jothiraman was a habeas corpus petition (HCP) seeking to direct the Puzhal prison authorities to provide proper medical treatment to a remand prisoner from Nigeria, Egwim Kingstley, his counsel Nadhiya submitted that the prison officials were ill-treating the foreign prisoners, including her client, and sought to move them out of solitary confinement, which is usually done to notorious criminals.

She alleged that the prison officials were torturing and assaulting foreign prisoners, and locked them up in the prison cells without providing any medical treatment.

The foreign prisoners were facing discrimination at the hands of prison officials, who do not permit them to speak to their family members over the phone as is usually permitted in the case of other prisoners, said the advocate. She sought the court to direct the State government to conduct an enquiry in this regard for further action.

Taking note of the submission, the bench observed that foreign prisoners were facing the alleged ill-treatment mentioned by the petitioner’s advocate because the State lacked rules and regulations on how to treat the foreign prisoners. The bench then impleaded the Union government and directed it to submit if the rules were being followed in the prisons in other states, and posted the matter after a week.