SC asks Union home secy to carry out urgent clean-up of Tihar Jail

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Union home secretary to urgently implement jail management schemes to check the misuse of cell phones in Tihar Jail and introduce other measures to check violence and rowdy behaviour in the jail. A bench, led by Justice DY Chandrachud, ordered the home ministry to submit a compliance report on this after the ministry failed to submit any action plan despite being ordered to do so at the last hearing.
The top court had earlier been aghast at the collusion between the officials in the jail and the promoters of Unitech who were jailed there. Unitech promoter Sanjay Chandra and his brother Ajay Chandra are in jail over money laundering charges. The ED had revealed to the court that the brothers and their sons ran a secret office from inside the jail.

This had prompted the court to direct the suspension of a few errant officials and also a probe by Delhi police commissioner Rakesh Asthana into the state of things in Tihar Jail. Following this, a report was submitted to court. In response to the report, the bench had sought an action plan from the government to check the misuse of cell phones in the jail.

The court also wanted the government to come up with a plan to check violence inside the jail. Murder and arson are common in jails. Justice MR Shah, the other judge on the bench, alluded to one such incident in the recent past to demand urgent action on this front. "You need to take action and not wait for something to happen in future," Justice Shah said.

"Neither an action plan has been filed before us nor any information been provided on the steps that have been taken. We do not find this acceptable," Justice Chandrachud noted in his short order.

The secretary will have to report back on the action taken within three weeks. The Chandra brothers have since been shifted out of Tihar Jail. Reacting to the government's failure to act on the Asthana report, the SC said: "When will the Ministry of Home Affairs take action? We need immediate reforms. Jammers, body scanners to ensure no unauthorised use of mobile phones."

Senior advocate KM Nataraj assured that action would be taken to clean up jails.