HC abolishes solitary confinement for prisoners facing death penalty

Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, December 15

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday abolished the practice adopted by the jail authorities in Punjab to segregate convicts immediately after the pronouncement of death sentence by the trial court and its confirmation by the High Court.

The ruling came as a convict escaped the gallows with the High Court commuting to life imprisonment the death sentence awarded to him by a Mansa court for raping and murdering a minor.

Directing the state to modify the Punjab Jail Manual, the Bench of Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Gurvinder Singh asserted that the convict would not be segregated or isolated till death sentence becomes final, conclusive and indefeasible and could not be annulled or voided by any judicial process.

The period to keep a convict sentenced to death in segregation or isolation was also required to be for “shortest possible time” of two to three days.

Dubbing solitary confinement as unconstitutional, the Bench asserted there was no scientific reason why the convict sentenced to death should be kept in isolation for indefinite period till he exhausted all his constitutional and legal remedies.

It caused immense pain, agony and anxiety to the condemned convict.

It was also violative of Articles 20(2) and 21 of the Constitution of India.

“A man, even if he is sentenced to death, has certain privileges and rights which cannot be denied to him due to a colonial mindset. The provisions of the Punjab Jail Manual are anarchic, cruel and insensitive,” the Punjab and Haryana High Court Bench added.

Referring to the Punjab Jail Manual, the Bench said a warder would not allow any person to go near or communicate with the prisoner except by an authorised person.

He was supposed to be in isolation for more than 23 hours in a day. This was against the Nelson Mandela rules.

Speaking for the Bench, Justice Sharma asserted that the practice to keep the convict in custodial segregation or solitary confinement before the exhaustion of his constitutional, legal and fundamental rights was without authority of law and amounted to additional punishment. It also amounted to torture and was violative of his basic human rights.

Justice Sharma referred to the United Nations Standard Minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners, articles published in foreign countries and a plethora of judgments while reaching the conclusion.

The development took place in the case of Kala Ram awarded death sentence by the Mansa Special Judge under Section 376-A of the IPC for committing rape and murder of a six-year-old.