Allahabad High Court tasks team of 5 lawyers to study skills of convicts at Lucknow jail

The Allahabad High Court recently directed a team of lawyers to study the skills and capabilities of convicts at Lucknow’s Model Jail to see how the same can be put to better use so that the prisoners are able to extend financial support to their families [Ishtiaq Hasan Khan vs State of UP].A division bench of Justice Attau Rahman Masoodi and Justice Brij Raj Singh directed the lawyers to come up with suggestions which can bring about a reformative mechanism for the convicts languishing in jail.“We should not be oblivious of the fact that the cluster of young people incarcerated in Model Jail, Lucknow may be possessed with the skills at variance, education and other capabilities of distinction, which may be utilised for their own self-sustenance and financial support to their families too,” it said..The Court was told that there are as many as 232 convicts in the jail and all of them are men in the age group of 25 to 45.The lawyers who have been asked to figure out the skills and capabilities of the convicts are Shikhar Srivastava, Akhand Vikram Singh, Udit Singh and Anamika Singh. “For the present, we direct the team of five lawyers … to undertake the necessary exercise and formulate a report in the light of order passed by this Court as above and place the report on record before the next date of listing,” the Court ordered while listing the matter for hearing in last week of April 2024..The order was passed in a suo motu Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition initiated by the Court with regard to the conditions of prisoners and their families. “The court had expressed a concern regarding the family condition of those convicts who were the sole breadwinners for their family reduced to a state of penury on account of the incarceration of their mukhiya. There may be a situation where the dependent family members might be faced with acute financial hardship and the children are deprived of fundamental education and health cover,” the bench recalled recently. The Court had thus called upon the State to study the concept of open jails that has been evolved in Rajasthan, Maharashtra and other States as part of a better reformative mechanism. .Advocate SM Singh Royekwar appeared as amicus curiae in the case.[Read Order]