Delhi High Court asks authorities to consider providing TV to high risk ward prisoners

The Delhi High Court Friday asked the prison authorities to consider putting up a television outside the high-security ward in Tihar Jail for the inmates lodged there, saying it was a "small" request which would not affect their budget.

"They (prisoners) are also suffering. They are not asking for heaven and sky. They are not asking for anything costly which would affect the prison budget. It is not such a big demand at all," a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan said.

It asked Delhi government additional standing counsel Gautam Narayan to take instructions on it and inform the court on the next date of hearing on August 7.

During the hearing held via video conference, Narayan told the bench that no prisoner was being kept in solitary confinement as contended by the petitioner organisation - Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC).

DSGMC, in its plea, has claimed that inmates of high-risk wards are kept in isolation and in the prevailing situation of Covid-19 pandemic they have no contact with anyone from the outside world, leaving them depressed.

It has contended that in the present scenario, recreational facilities like television are necessary for such inmates to survive.

"How many times can an isolated person read books," the DSGMC counsel said in court and added that a TV can be put in the common area outside the ward and the remote need not be given to the inmates.

The present application for recreational facilities for the high-risk prisoners, including terrorists, has been filed in a pending PIL filed by the DSGMC in 2018, highlighting the plight of such inmates.