The Bombay High Court on Tuesday asked the Maharashtra government to respond to its concerns over surge in Covid-19 cases across prisons in the state and provide suggestions on measures to prevent the same.

This came after the state government informed the HC that currently about 35, 124 prisoners are lodged across 47 jails in Maharashtra, which have capacity to house nearly 23217 inmates. The state government also informed the Court that there are 188 active Covid-19 cases in the prisons at present.

The Court, while raising concerns over surge in Covid-19 spread in prisons, sought to know from the state government as to whether RT-PCR test of accused persons can be conducted prior to admitting in prison along with their vaccination ( in case of age above 45 years) and also asked if the undertrials can be produced before the court through videoconferencing

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish S Kulkarni was hearing suo motu (on its own) PIL initiated by HC last week based on news reports highlighting alarming rise in Covid-19 cases in the last two months in the prisons across Maharashtra.

The court had asked the state government prison authorities to produce by the next hearing details of the Covid-19 status of prison staff and inmates, and measures taken or proposed to be taken to control the Covid-19 spread and decongest jails.

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