NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has indicated that it would not allow even prisoners to be treated in an inhuman’ way, as it was done in the case of seven TADA under trials in Guwahati Hospital.
Reserving its order on the public interest litigation moved by the Citizens for Democracy (CFD), the division bench of Justice Kuldip Singh and Justice N. Venkatchala told Solicitor General Dipankar Gupta, representing the Assam Government, that “We will not permit you to treat them like that.” may be stated here that CFD president and veteran joumalist, Kuldip Nayar, had addressed a letter to Justice Kuldip Singh disclosing about his visit to the Guwahati Hospital, where he had noticed seven TADA under trials handcuffed and tied with a rope in a locked room. The court, after treating the letter as a writ petition had asked the Supreme Court’s Legal Aid Committee to assist it in the matter. Meanwhile, when Gupta submitted that in case these under trials were not handcuffed and there was every possibility of their running away. Justice Kuldip Singh remarked: “‘Let them all run away. But this rope and handcuffing, we will not accept.” “Besides, why can’t you deploy more persons to guard them. Whenever a minister goes on a road, you have 5,000 people put up here and there, so why not have more guards in these type of cases.”
Justice Kuldip Singh further pointed out that in a recent order, the Apex Court had observed that even a body hung from a scaffold deserved a dignity.” And here these persons are not even dead.”
Article extracted from this publication >> February 24, 1995
