Following are the highlights of the Supreme Court’s judgment in which it banned caste-based discrimination like division of manual labour, segregation of barracks and bias against prisoners of de-notified tribes and habitual offenders by holding as “unconstitutional” the jail manual rules of 10 states for fostering such biases.
* SC declares impugned provisions unconstitutional for being violative of Articles 14, 15, 17, 21 and 23 of the Constitution.
* SC directs all states and Union Territories to revise their Prison Manuals/Rules in accordance with this judgment within a period of three months.
* SC directs Centre to make necessary changes to address caste-based discrimination in the Model Prison Manual, 2016 and the Model Prisons and Correctional Services Act, 2023 within a period of three months.
* SC says the “caste” column and any references to caste in jailed undertrials or convicted prisoners’ registers inside the prisons shall be deleted.
* SC takes suo motu cognisance of the discrimination inside prisons on any ground such as caste, gender, disability.
* SC says district legal services authorities and the Board of Visitors formed under the Model Prison Manual, 2016 shall jointly conduct regular inspections to identify whether caste-based discrimination or similar discriminatory practices are still taking place inside prisons.
