Women prisoners face far worse conditions than men in terms of access to basic facilities, a Supreme Court-appointed committee has observed in its report, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday.
The Justice Amitava Roy Committee report on prison reforms had been submitted in December. The Supreme Court directed the Centre and state governments to put forward their views on the report on August 29.
The report said that prisons only in Goa, Delhi and Puducherry allow female inmates to meet their children without being separated by any bars or glass. Less than 40% prisons provide sanitary napkins to female inmates, the committee found.
Only 18% of female prisoners get exclusive women’s prison facilities, and functional women’s prisons exist in just 15 states and Union Territories, according to The Indian Express.
“Women in incarceration suffer the brunt of imprisonment far worse than their male counterparts, especially with regard to access to basic facilities ranging from medical care and medical staff, legal aid and counsel, to paid labour and recreational facilities,” the report said. “These fundamentals are frequently denied to women who live in enclosures inside the larger setup of a prison facility as opposed to an exclusive women’s prison facility.”
At the end of 2021, there were 22,918 women prisoners across India, accounting for 4.13% of the total number of inmates, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
Crowding among undertrial population
The Justice Amitava Roy Committee also said that the problem of crowding was particularly severe in the case of undertrial inmates, The New Indian Express reported. The panel suggested setting up fast-track courts to specifically deal with cases of petty offences that have been pending for over five years.
It also recommended giving district and sessions judges the responsibility to monitor the progress of cases in which the accused person has been in custody for over a year in cases that need to be tried by a sessions court, and over six months in cases that need to be tried by a magistrate.
The report also said that authorities in only 13 states and two Union Territories have designated a complaint officer to deal with allegations of the violation of rights of transgender inmates in prisons. It also said that most states and Union Territories have not created schemes for the welfare of transgender prisoners.
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