Challenge to constitutional validity of solitary confinement: Delhi High Court seeks Central government response

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Union Ministries of Home Affairs (MHA) and Law and Justice on a plea challenging the constitutional validity of provisions related to solitary confinement [Harsh Vibhore Singhal v. Union of India & Anr]..A Division Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad ordered the respondents to file their replies within six weeks and listed the case for further consideration on May 23. .The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Advocate Harsh Vibhore Singhal challenged Sections 73 and 74 (both relate to solitary confinement) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as well as several sections of the Prisons Act, 1894. Singhal has argued that 'solitary confinement' is neither defined in the IPC nor in the Prisons Act. The plea said that this is an additional punishment and an arbitrary judicial and police power with no nexus to the sentence. "It is a gross aberration of law and no court can assume that just because a heinous crime is committed, a convict also deserves solitary confinement...That solitary confinement is a venomous lethal sting of a veritable scorpion; it is sadistic, barbaric and an inhuman practice that consigns prisoners into dingy malodorous dungeons by abusive, coercive and obstreperous prison officials for even minor prison infractions as feigning sickness, squabbling over food or access to toilets, being indolent or even talking-back with prison officers," the plea argued..It further said that solitary confinement is inhumane since it cuts off an inmate from sensory, visual and social society and that even the Supreme Court has said that such punishment can be used only in rarest of rare circumstances. "Supreme Court ruled that solitary confinement for prisoners awaiting death must be for “rarest of rare” cases. For amenable prisoners' conduct inside jails, Krishna Iyer J succinctly held in Sunil Batra that solitary can only be carried out under prior instructions of a sessions or a higher court. However, jail superintendents routinely use solitary confinement to extract acquiescence and obeisance without judicial oversight."