Prisons Act, 1894 – Rights of prisoners on death row – Held: Convict on death row is entitled to have meetings with his immediate family members, lawyers or even mental health professionals – Such convict is entitled to move within the confines of the prison like any other convict undergoing rigorous imprisonment, however, certain restrictions may be necessary for security reasons, but even then, it would be necessary to comply with natural justice provisions with an entitlement to file an appeal – All other issues left open for consideration by the Justice Amitava Roy Committee – Committee to look into the issues raised in the present application in greater depth – Constitution of India – Arts. 14 and 21.
Prisons Act, 1894 – s.30 – Prisoner, when a death row prisoner – Held: A prisoner can be said to be a death row prisoner when his sentence is beyond judicial scrutiny and would be operative without any intervention from any other authority. Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration and others (1978)
4 SCC 494 : [1979] 1 SCR 392 – followed.
Sunil Batra (II) v. Delhi Administration (1980) 3 SCC
488 : [1980] 2 SCR 557 ; Kishore Singh Ravinder Dev v. State of Rajasthan (1981) 1 SCC 503 : [1981] 1 SCR
995 ; Frances Coralie Mullin v. Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi (1981) 1 SCC 608 : [1981] 2 SCR
516 ; Rakesh Kaushik v. B.L. Vig (1980) Suppl. SCC
183 : [1980] 3 SCR 929 – relied on.
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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