Government to set up four more prisons in state

The state government on Wednesday informed the Karnataka High Court that four more prisons will come up in Bidar, Mangaluru, Bengaluru and Hassan.

The prisons will have a capacity of 1,000 inmates each.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari was hearing a suo motu petition filed by the registrar general of the high court, seeking action on the issue of overcrowding in prisons and to fill up pending vacancies of prison staff, following the Supreme Court’s direction.

Suo motu petition

The apex court, in its order dated May 8, 2018, had requested the chief justices of the high courts to take up the issue as a suo motu petition.

Government counsel D Nagaraj submitted that 991 wardens have been appointed to strengthen the prison staff across Karnataka.

Time sought

The government counsel sought time to submit further progress in this regard. The government had earlier submitted on June 18 that the inmate population in the various jails across the state is 14,206 against the capacity of 13,800, which works out to be 406 inmates or 3% excess.

Taking into consideration that jails across the country are overcrowded and some are crowded beyond their capacity, some even exceeding 150%, and the lack of interest by the state governments to recruit more prison staff, the Supreme Court had directed the high courts to take up the matter.