ORDER

(R. Mahadevan, J.)

"No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones." - Nelson Mandela

The aforesaid words of the South African anti-apartheid activist resonate in the mind of this court, while we deal with the issue involved in this public interest litigation.

2.The petitioner, a Human Rights Organisation based at Madurai, represented by its Executive Director, has filed this writ petition seeking to issue a Writ of Mandamus directing the respondents to appoint trained and skilled non-official visitors to the Board of Visitors to Jails as per Rule 507 of the Tamil Nadu Prison Rules, 1983 for visiting each of the Central Jails and Sub Jails to address the grievance of prisoners and helping the prison administration and also to incorporate the directions issued by the Joint Secretary of Home Department to the Government of India vide proceedings in F.No.16014/4/2005-PR dated 18.02.2011 and Chapter 29 of the Model Prison Manual, 2003 within a time that may be stipulated by this Court.

3.(i) According to the petitioner, prisons in our State still remain closed institutions and its physical structure and rules endow them with a cover of obscurity in which fundamental human rights can be unofficially violated and officially denied. It is stated that over the years, prisons have become places of low visibility, where inhuman and even cruel conditions of prisoners continue to prevail. There are adequate possibilities where the inmates are inflicted with injuries and in order to prevent such situations, the Prisons Act, 1894 (hereinafter shortly referred to as “Act”) was enacted. The petitioner referring to Section 59 (25) of the Act which deals with appointment and guidance of visitors of prison, stated that such right to visit the prisoner is a mechanism provided where people from the outside community are appointed by governments to enter the prison and assess the human rights situation prevailing there. He also referred to Rule 507 of the Tamil Nadu Prison Rules, 1983, which provides for the appointment of non-official visitors to ensure continuous monitoring of the conditions inside all prisons/jails, particularly, the manner in which human rights of prisoners are safeguarded. The petitioner also furnished the statistics of the number of prisons and the capacity of each prison to accommodate the prisoners in para No.5 of the affidavit.

(ii) The grievance of the petitioner is that the State Government has not appointed non-official visitors, thereby violating the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Prison Rules, 1983. It is further stated that appointment of such non-official visitors is necessary to ensure the manner in which the prisoners are treated. According to the petitioner, even though the Government of India, in its proceedings dated 18.02.2011, issued guidelines to be followed in the matter of appointment of non-official visitors, it has not been followed by the respondents in letter and spirit. In this context, the petitioner referred to a news paper article published in ‘The Hindu’ dated 03.08.2014 stating that 69 prison inmates died in Tamil Nadu. Further, as per the response received by the petitioner to the applications submitted under the Right to Information Act, 2005, between 2010 and 2014, 33 persons died in Palayamkottai Central Prison alone. The petitioner also furnished the statistics relating to number of deaths in various prisons across the State and submitted that if trained nonofficial visitors visit the jails across the State frequently, the conditions of inmates will largely improve and the grievance, if any, of the inmates relating to human rights violation, can be addressed then and there.

(iii) The petitioner further pointed out that the State Government shall appoint non-official visitors for every jail and such appointments made by the Government shall be notified in the State Government Gazette. T