The Supreme Court on Tuesday (November 3) expressed disappointment that 23 States and Union Territories have still not responded to the information sought by the Union Home Ministry in its suo motu case on caste-based discrimination inside prisons, and gave them one last opportunity to reply.

Source: LiveLaw

A bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manmohan warned that if the States and UTs fail to respond by the next date of hearing, the Court would be compelled to direct the Chief Secretaries and Principal Secretaries of all the States and UTs to personally remain present before it. The matter, titled In Re: Discrimination Inside Prisons in India, is next listed on January 13, 2027.

23States/UTs yet to respond to the Home Ministry
Jan 13, 2027Next hearing date
2024Year of the Sukanya Shantha judgment

What the Centre is still waiting to hear

In July this year, the Court had taken on record a detailed status report showing that written responses were still awaited from several States and UTs on how caste data is collected and sent to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the deletion of caste columns from prison registers and forms, the outsourcing of cleaning work, compliance with the Arnesh Kumar and Amanatullah Khan guidelines, district-wise Boards of Visitors, and the status of new prison Acts, Rules and Manuals and of amendments to the offending provisions.

Senior Advocate Dr S Muralidhar, the amicus curiae in the case, told the Court that no State or UT had constituted Boards of Visitors district-wise as directed in July, when the Court had ordered every State and UT to set up district-wise boards headed by the Principal District Judge within four weeks. In September, the Court was told only a few districts in different States had constituted them. Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati had earlier been asked to take up the matter with all States and UTs and gather the information at the earliest.

"We give one last opportunity to all the states to immediately respond to the various queries raised by the Union on different issues to enable the Union to file one composite report," the bench said, making it clear that if the States do not respond by the next hearing, it shall be compelled to direct their Chief Secretaries and Principal Secretaries to personally remain present before the Court.

A case that began with the 2024 judgment

The monitoring case arose from the Supreme Court's October 2024 judgment in Sukanya Shantha v Union of India, in which the Court struck down prison-manual provisions that divided work and segregated prisoners by caste as unconstitutional under Articles 14, 15, 17, 21 and 23, ordered the caste column to be deleted from prison registers, and directed States and the Centre to revise their prison manuals and model rules. The Court then took suo motu cognisance to monitor compliance with those directions.

Source: ANI via LatestLY

What happens next is now dated: the States and UTs must send their replies so the Union can file one composite report before January 13, 2027 — or their top civil servants will have to explain the delay to the bench in person.