“In matters of policy, the courts do not substitute its own conclusion with the one arrived at by the government merely because another view is possible. Therefore, this court is not inclined to pass any order issuing writ of mandamus,” a bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad said.
The judgment came while disposing of a petition challenging certain provisions of the Delhi Prison Rules, 2018.
The petition by advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai prayed for amendment of the Rules to allow interviews with legal advisers be open from Monday to Friday for an appropriate allotted time with no cap on interviews per week.
The petitioner, in the interim, prayed for visits of the legal counsel to their clients in Delhi prisons more than twice a week.
The high court, in its verdict, said keeping in view the fact that the present PIL is not an adversarial litigation and the petition has been filed in the interest of prisoners, it permits the petitioner to give a representation to the state providing suggestions.
It said the state shall consider the suggestions in the right spirit. “Depending upon the number of undertrials and prisoners, the State has taken a decision of capping total number of visits by family members, relatives, friends and legal advisers to two times a week and it cannot be said that the said decision is completely arbitrary. The said decision has been taken after careful consideration of the facilities available in the prisons, availability of the staff and the number of undertrials,” the bench said.
The petitioner contended that limiting the number of visits by family members, relatives, friends and legal advisers to twice a week is violative of Article 21 of the Constitution as it limits the rights of an undertrial to have adequate resources to legal representation.
Fixing a cap on the number of visits to an undertrial is manifestly arbitrary as it imposes an unreasonable restriction on the right to legal representation and is violative of the right to access justice which is guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution, the petitioner said.
The Delhi government, in its reply, submitted that there are 16 jails in Delhi housing more than 18,000 prisoners against the sanctioned capacity of 10,026. It said that looking at the number of inmates in the prisons here, it was decided to put a cap on the number of visits permitted by family members, relatives, friends and legal counsel.
It said that providing two legal interviews to a prisoner can be increased on the request of a prisoner or a visiting counsel and it does not fall foul of the constitutional right of the prisoner.
The Delhi government counsel submitted that in no other state, prisoners are permitted visitation more than twice a week.
He said these are matters of policy and this decision has been taken by the state in the best interests of the prisoners and to provide a congenial atmosphere not only to the prisoner but also to the visiting counsel while conducting their legal interviews and to avoid crowding at the time of visitation.
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