The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking to relax the Delhi Prison Rule so that jail inmates could meet their family members or advocates twice a week instead of the existing one meeting.
A bench of Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Pankaj Mithal said that it was not inclined to interfere with the Delhi High Court order against which the appeal has been filed in the top court.
The bench said it is a policy decision and the absence of such restrictions would make it difficult for jail authorities to handle affairs at the prisons.
On February 16, 2023, the High Court had declined to relax the Delhi Prison Rules that restricts the right of inmates to consult a lawyer to two meetings a week.
The High Court had said the decision to cap the total number of visits has been taken after careful consideration of the facilities available in prisons, availability of staff and the number of undertrials.
The petitioner’s advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai prayed that the Prison Rules should provide for an interview with legal advisors from Monday to Friday for an unlimited number of times.
The petitioner, in the interim, had prayed for visits of the legal counsel to their clients in Delhi prisons more than twice a week.
The petitioner had 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.