The Supreme court sent notice to both Union and State governments to respond to the allegation of caste discrimination in prisons of various states. A public interest petition has been filed in the Supreme Court alleging that there are handbooks promoting caste discrimination in prisons of various states including Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Caste discrimination
The public interest petition was filed by Shukanya Santa from Kalyana, Maharashtra alleging that 11 states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Andra Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab, Odisha, Jharkhand and Maharashtra shows caste based discrimination in prisons. The petitioner is a reporter of a popular news media and filed this allegation after a detailed investigation of caste based segregation and labour rules in India.
The petition were heard by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice JP. Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra on 3, January. In this hearing, Muralidhar the advocate of the petitioner pointed out that the prison manuals of nearly 11 states shows caste discrimination in allotments of jobs within prisons.
3 types of discrimination
The Court took concern of this case in three ways; one is certain de-notified tribal communities (DNC) are treated differently and faces caste discrimination, the next one is the caste based division of labours and the last one is caste based segregation of prisoners . For this argument, the judges asked Advocate Muralithar to compile prison manuals from the states and announced that the hearing would be adjourned after four weeks.
SC notice
The Supreme Court ordered notice to be sent to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and the 11 states regarding this public interest petition and instructed Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to provide necessary assistance in this case.
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