Healthcare For Prisoners – Legal Prospective
The aim of sending prisoners to prison was to send them to correction centers rather than depriving them of their rights. With the passage of time and the crime rate increasing at a tremendous rate, laws started to become more strict and stringent.
However, even with laws becoming more and more stringent, the constitution still provides the duty of the state to maintain the prisoners, who are unable to maintain themselves in a closed environment.
Many unalienable rights have been conferred upon the prisoners, of which the right to health is being given the utmost importance. Right to health becomes more so important because it is closely concerned with the right to not become prone to communicable and other diseases.
All the public policies that have been framed by the legislature were with one motive only, to ensure the best possible living conditions for all members of the society, even when those members are in prison. However, the sad reality is that prisoners are always forgotten in this equation and are always kept out of the part of society.
As said by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar “If people get sick, we take them to the hospital and give them the right medicine to get better. If people’s behavior is sick, we bring them to the prison, but we forget the medicines.”
One of the common issue, raised regarding the health of the prisoners are the overcrowded prisons. India is one of the few countries to have the highest number of criminals placed in a single prison, and with the shortage of food and space, the situation becomes even worse.
Supreme Court in its landmark case titled Parmanand Katara v. Union of India clarified the duty of the state towards the prisoners and held that “the state has an obligation to preserve life whether he is an innocent person or a criminal liable to punishment under the law.”
One of the major factor that constitutes these overcrowded prisons are under trials. According to the Prison Statistics India 2015 Report, Indian prisons are 14% overcrowded, with a shortage of not only space but of food as well. Meghalaya tops the chart of overcrowded prisons with 77.9%, followed by 68.8% in Uttar Pradesh and 39.8% in Madhya Pradesh.
Uttar Pradesh is also the state with the most number of under trials with 62,669 under trials, which is followed by Bihar with 23,424 under trials, and Maharashtra with 21,667 under trials.
Thus, one of the main reasons for these overcrowded prisons are pending undertrials. Under the Indian Constitution, the framework presumes innocent until proven guilty. However, the under trials prisoners had to observe a completely opposite approach. Under trials are often subjected to psychological and physical torture, inhumane living conditions, and often lost community and family ties. Under trials have a common tendency to be restrained from legal representation.
Although, Criminal Procedure Code provides for medical examination of the arrested person under Section 55A, which specifies that the person who is arrested should be given the right to have his body examined by the medical officer when is produced before a magistrate or at any time under custody, with the aim of satisfying the magistrate that the arrested person was not subjected to physical torture.
However, with a severe staff shortage among Indian jails, this still feels like a dream. According to a survey, states like Delhi have 50% shortage of manpower such as jail guards and senior supervisory workforce.
States like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand have up to 65% shortage than the required manpower. And the result, everyday on an average 4 prisoners die due to carelessness and lack of health infrastructure.
Justice Krishna Iyer while pronouncing judgment in the case of Babu Singh v. State of U.P. went on to add that “Our legal system, especially in some instances, suffers from slow-motion syndrome, which is fatal to fair trial”.
Furthermore, Gujarat High Court in the case of Rasikbhai Ramsun Rana vs. State of Gujarat observed that prisoners incarcerated in the Central Prison, Vadodara, who were suffering from serious illnesses, were denied sufficient and prompt medical care due to a lack of jail escorts necessary to transport them to the hospital, and that the court held negligent officers personally accountable.
COVID SITUATION IN INDIAN PRISONS
While the state of Indian prisons was already worse, COVID has made it even worse. While COVID situation mainly demands social distancing, Indian prisons do not even have sufficient space to accommodate all the prisoners.
In order to combat the situation, Supreme Court in March 2020 ordered all states and jail authorities to take immediate steps to ensure that proper medical care is available.
The measures suggested include transporting convicts for decongestion or medical help, developing reaction plans in cooperation with medical professionals, and establishing monitoring teams. However, the majority of Supreme Court decisions were not fulfilled by the Government, and the task of ensuring the fundamental rights of the prisoners were left at the mercy of the courts and jail superintendents.
CONCLUSION
Thus, time and again it has been reiterated by courts across the country that even prisoners have certain basic fundamental rights, which cannot be abrogated even in jail. However, even in situations when the law of land has become so stringent, cases of harshness and violence are daily news. The most common reasons for this is overcrowded prisons, underfunded jails, and vacancies lying for the superintendent posts.
This has become the need of the hour, with several measures needed to be taken in order to upheld our constitution and protect the fundamental rights of the prisoners.