Hindi daily Prabhat Khabar had reported the news yesterday. Chief justice Virender Singh cited the Supreme Court’s judgment on prisoners’ right to live with dignity, and directed the court’s registry to register the case as public interest litigation against RIMS – where prisoners suffering from illnesses in various jails in Jharkhand are sent for medical attention.
RIMS counsel Rajesh Kumar informed the court that a water purifier has been installed in RIMS’ prisoner ward and undertrials will have no scarcity of drinking water, but that RIMS would file a detailed report on this within a week’s time.
The court gave RIMS a week’s time to file the report and listed the case for next hearing on 27 April.
RIMS has been in the news and in court previously for its prisoner’s ward’s state. Last year 600-700 prisoners of a state jail went on hunger strike to protest the alleged negligence at RIMS which had resulted in the death of their fellow inmate while he was lodged in RIMS’ prison ward. In 2013 RIMS was before the Jharkhand high court, of the high court’s own motion, for having allotted six of its 14 cottages to influential political prisoners with allegedly minor ailments.