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 peti