According to the Prison Statistics India Report 2022, there were 5.73 lakh prisoners housed in 1,330 prisons in the country as of December 31, 2022. Around 77% of them were undertrials, and the prison occupancy averaged around 131% — though in hundreds of prisons, the occupancy varies between 150-200%. The India Justice Report 2022 highlights that prison staff vacancies stand at ~30% and medical staff vacancies at ~40%, which has a cascading effect on prison conditions and stress levels experienced by those managing the prisons. Over the years, the courts have been directing the executive to ensure the well-being of prisoners, conduct inspections, and hold prison administrations to account.
In 2015, the Bombay High Court (HC) admitted a PIL filed by Jan Adalat, Centre for Paralegal Services and Legal Aid on the issue of mulakat (meeting) facilities for lawyers and prison conditions. The bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka, passed several directions including a direction to set up a committee headed by a retired high court judge, to recommend measures to improve prison conditions in Maharashtra.
In March 2017, a committee headed by Justice S Radhakrishnan, a retired judge of the Bombay HC, was set up. I was appointed as a member, which allowed me to spend some time with Justice Radhakrishnan. With his passing earlier this year, I am reminded of the man who committed himself completely to this important work. His sincerity showed right from the start. The committee held its first meeting on July 10, 2017, and over a period of one year, it held 16 meetings and visited eight prisons across the state. What struck me about Radhakrishnan was his sharp understanding of issues, his keenness to learn, his utter humility, and the respect with which he interacted with everyone. He chaired several meetings with government officials and NGOs to discuss infrastructure gaps, legal aid and bail, parole and furlough, health including mental health, education and skill development, library facilities, and rehabilitation of released prisoners. He was deeply passionate about the plight of undertrial and convicted prisoners, especially the former. Instead of sitting in an air-conditioned office and calling prison officials and other stakeholders over to discuss issues, in the first meeting, he made it clear that he intended to visit prisons and get a first-hand experience of the situation of prisoners and prison staff.
Born in Chennai in 1946, Radhakrishnan started his practice in the Bombay HC and specialised in constitutional matters and press laws. He was made a permanent judge in 1998. In the course of his career, he had seen from close quarters the majesty of the law as well as how public servants lower it with their acts of omission and commission. I think it was this deep realisation that the law is as good as its implementation that drove him to throw himself into prison reform.
He was keen on improving the plight of undertrials languishing for want of competent legal aid and inability to post bail. Under his guidance, the committee organised two seminars for law college students, to motivate them to render voluntary legal aid to prisoners. During prison visits, he would interact with the incarcerated to understand their issues. He would check the condition of the barracks, toilets and bathing areas, kitchens, vocational training units, and prison industries. He even sought meetings with the prison staff in the absence of senior officials to understand their issues.
The committee submitted its final report on June 30, 2018. In my view, the Radhakrishnan Committee report is one of the most comprehensive, yet grounded, reform reports that I am aware of. This is primarily due to the seriousness that Justice Radhakrishnan brought to the entire exercise. While many of the recommendations made by the committee are yet to see the light of day, the committee succeeded in improving prison conditions to the extent possible. He made a strong plea to fill vacancies and got the state’s home ministry to understand the importance of this. He backed my suggestion to appoint social workers in prisons to fulfill their rehabilitation objective.
Over the years, we kept in touch and he was very keen to know if any of our major recommendations had seen the light of day. In 2023, I wrote a letter to then state home minister and current CM, Devendra Fadnavis, requesting the government to consider implementing the major recommendations, and a few months later, in February 2024, he forwarded my letter to the additional chief secretary of the home department, asking the department to look into the same, marking a copy to Justice Radhakrishnan and me. Upon receiving the letter, Radhakrishnan called me, sounding delighted that perhaps the report’s recommendation would finally be implemented. I am told that the soon-to-be-released revised Maharashtra Prison Manual has incorporated many of these. If that is the case, it would be a perfect tribute to Radhakrishnan and his passion for prisoners’ rights.
Vijay Raghavan is professor, Centre for Criminology and Justice, School of Social Work, TISS, and leads Prayas, a field action project of TISS, working on prisoners’ rights and rehabilitation. The views expressed are personal
