Economic
Times: New Delhi: Wednesday, 27 May 2015.
Tihar Jail
must voluntarily disclose the diet chart, standard of food, basic medical
services and grievance redressal systems available for inmates and children
lodged inside the prison complex, the Central Information Commission has ruled.
Hearing a
complaint filed by Sehjad, an inmate who has been undergoing several jail terms
since 2004, the transparency watchdog pointed out "malfunctioning of diet
supply mechanisms" in Tihar Jail, Asia's largest prison. Sehjad had filed
an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking details of the
quantity of milk given to inmates, problem of dilution of milk and redressal of
grievances.
He had
indirectly made serious allegations against the jail authorities that they were
promoting wet canteens, forcing the prisoners to purchase through smart cards,
while diluting quality of food generally supplied free of cost.
Taking a
serious note of the allegations, Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu
asked the jail administration to provide a detailed response to the prisoner
who had approached CIC as he had received incomplete response.
In his
eight-page order, Acharyulu said the prison administration should divulge these
details regularly and voluntarily on its website. The prison administration has
been given a month to place on its official website and on the notice boards in
different jails "the diet chart, standards of food for inmates suffering
simple and rigorous imprisonment and children, besides medical services,
redressal grievances available at respective prisons".
The
information commissioner also directed the prison administration to treat the
application as a complaint and furnish to the commission action taken report on
all the issues pointed out by Sehjad. "The prisoner's questions reflect the
malfunctioning of diet supply mechanism in the prison," Acharyulu said.
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