Deploying prison inmates for virus control risky, unnecessary: HC

Holding that it was not only fraught with risk but there was no such requirement, the Madras High Court dismissed a plea seeking to employ the services of convicted jail inmates for providing security and other services to control COVID 19 pandemic outside the jails as a step towards reforming them.

A division bench comprising Justice Vineet Kothari and Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana, before whom a plea came in this regard, said, "We agree with the submission made by the government pleader that taking the services of the convicted people, who are presently in the jails, outside the jail premises may not only be fraught with risk, but there is no such requirement as such made out either by the petitioner-in-person or by the State as of now."

The court noted that the employment of the inmates within the jail premises in different spheres for their reform has already been taking place in terms of the Prisons Act.

“Therefore, bringing them outside the jails to assist police personnel and other volunteers for security and other related purposes in COVID-19 situation is not considered very necessary at this stage," the bench held while dismissing the Public Interest Litigation filed by R Sreedhar, a practising advocate, as party-in-person.