5 days ago
1
The Kerala High Court has directed the State authorities not to proceed with the shifting of the Women Prison and Correctional Home astatine Attakulangara to the Central Prison and Correctional Home, Poojappura, without further orders from the court.
A High Court Bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas issued the bid connected a petition by Sakhi Women’s Resource Centre, a not-for-profit rights-based organisation based successful Thiruvananthapuram.
The tribunal has posted the lawsuit for June 23.
In October past year, the past Left Democratic Front authorities had fixed the motion for relocation of the Attakulangara women situation to the aged artifact of the Poojappura Central Prison.
According to the authorities bid issued then, the determination was successful enactment with plans to acceptable up different high-level situation successful the confederate portion of the State.
As per the order, the existing women’s situation would beryllium transformed into a impermanent peculiar sub-jail, susceptible of lodging up to 300 inmates, taxable to the information that it would beryllium merged with the caller situation erstwhile it is established.
The determination had sparked concerns implicit the payment of women prisoners. Prisoners and jailhouse officials alleged that the aged women’s artifact astatine Central Prison could not accommodate adjacent fractional the women prisoners from Attakulangara. The prisoners often included large women, those with children, women with chronic wellness issues, and those with intelligence wellness issues. The prisoners expressed interest implicit the imaginable of being confined to an aged artifact that had nary facilities for their carnal oregon intelligence well-being.
According to Sakhi, the Attakulangara women’s jailhouse is 1 of the lone 3 institutions for accommodating women offenders and remand/undertrial prisoners successful the State and 1 of the 31 exclusive women jails successful India.
Challenges and hardships
The prison, it said, had been developed to conscionable the chiseled needs of women prisoners specified arsenic capable abstraction and facilities for children residing with their mothers, proviso for vocational grooming and rehabilitation programmes, and casual accessibility for relatives, lawyers, and societal workers to sojourn the prisoners. These considerations would beryllium earnestly affected if the women’s situation was shifted to Poojappura. The determination would not lone disrupt ongoing rehabilitation efforts but besides make affectional and logistical hardships for the women inmates and their families.
The District Legal Services Authority had submitted a study to the tribunal connected the matter.
