The judgment establishes the principle of prisoners' fundamental rights, the obligation of the State to implement rehabilitation measures liberally, and the application of restorative justice principles in restoring the equilibrium between individual rights and societal interests.

R.S. Chauhan, J.-Dante in his Divine Comedy, Book III, called The Inferno describes the conditions prevailing in hell. Consisting of nine rings, the hell has different rings assigned to different groups of sinners. In each ring the sinners are tortured and tormented. Instead of rings, our jails have barracks, where the prisoners, both convicted and under trials, are abandoned. In Rajasthan, the barracks are called "barda" (a term used in the village for the place where animals are tied). This is rather reflective of our attitude towards the prisoners. Housed far away from human habitations, the prisoners are out of sight and out of our mind. They exist in a low visibility area of our society. They rot in a hell created by a welfare State. The pitiable condition of our jails is an open secret. Though many Commissions have been constituted, many reports have been submitted, but they have fallen on deaf ears. Even the repeated exhortations of the Honble Supreme Court have not elicited any fruitful response from the State. Except for some token lip service, the State has not taken any creative and concrete steps for ameliorating the conditions of our prisoners. Hence, the petitioners, a groups of convicted prisoners lodged in the Central Jail, Jaipur, have knocked at the gates of this Court with a very limited prayer : to be transferred to the Open Air Camps ("the Camps", for short) under the Rajasthan Open Air Camp Rules, 1972 ("The Rules", for short) which are functioning in the State.

2. In brief , the case of the petitioners is that they have been convicted for different offences, mostly for offence under Section 302 of Indian Penal Code (IPC, for short) and have been sentenced to different terms, mostly for life imprisonment. According to Rule 4 of the Rules, a convicted prisoner is eligible for being transferred to a Camp in case he has completed one-third of his sentence and if his conduct in the jail has been good during his incarceration. All of them have completed more than one-third of their sentence; their track record in the jail has been good. Thus, they are eligible for being transferred to the Camps under the said Rules. However, neither the State Government is convening the meeting of the Advisory Committee in accordance with the Rules, nor is it transferring the petitioners to the Campus. Thus, they are needlessly languishing in the jail. The petitioners have prayed that not only they should be shifted to the Camps, but also in case there is lack of accommodation in the Camps, then the same should be increased by establishing more Camps in the State.

3. On the other hand, the State has contended that Rajasthan is leading the nation in the number of Camps functioning in the State. There are ten Camps operating in the State. About 456 convicted prisoners are housed in these Camps. According to Rule 6 of the Rules, the convicted prisoners are transferred to the Camps according to their seniority calculating as the years spent by them in the jail. Thus, those who have done more time in the jail, they are transferred first; the one with less time are held back. Thus, the principle of first come, first go is applied. The State has also submitted that a proposal to set up three new Camps is under consideration, namely one at Ajmer, Jalore and Sriganganagar districts. However, till a suitable site is located, till necessary warders are finalized, the Camps cannot be opened at these places. Moreover, because of paucity of funds it is not possible to set up such Camps in each district of the State.

4. We have heard the learned Counsels for the parties and have perused the record produced before this Court.

5. Oscar Wilde, the English author, who knew the prison system closely, having being sentenced there

many a times, wrote about the prison system in these lines :

I know no whether Laws be right,

Or whether Laws are wrong

All that we know who lie in goal

Is that the wall is strong,

And that each days is like a ye