The Rajasthan High Court has directed the state government to finalise, approve and formally notify the Rajasthan Custodian Death Relief Scheme, 2025 within three months, while issuing a series of directions to improve prison conditions across the state, Live Law reported on Thursday, 29 October.
Source: Live Law
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay K. Agrawal and Justice Sameer Jain issued the directions while disposing of a batch of public interest litigations concerning the rights, welfare and dignity of prisoners, as well as infrastructure, security and living conditions in Rajasthan's jails, according to the report.
Monitoring Committees and the Ajmer Death
The court constituted a permanent State-Level Monitoring Committee to monitor prison conditions and compliance, and directed it to meet quarterly to review compliance with the present judgment and earlier orders. The Times of India reported that the district-level committees will be chaired by district judges and will include the Director General of Prisons, the Member Secretary of the Rajasthan State Legal Services Authority and the Director of the Department of Information Technology.
Source: The Times of India (Jaipur)
The court had taken suo motu cognisance of the PILs over the period from 2012 to 2026, initially based on newspaper reports highlighting security lapses in prisons, and the proceedings were later expanded to include representations from inmates. The latest directions followed the state's status reports, including details of the death of undertrial prisoner Jagan Gurjar at the High Security Jail in Ajmer on 29 June 2026; the state report said the CCTV camera covering the cell where the incident occurred had been non-functional due to a technical fault, Live Law reported.
Observing that implementation requires, in the court's words, perpetual vigilance and adequate technical support and not merely episodic compliance, the bench ordered a set of time-bound steps for the prison system.
CCTV, Searches, Guards and Wages
The court issued a mandamus to the Director of the Department of Information Technology (DOIT) and RAJCOMP Info Services Ltd. (RISL) to take immediate action on pending maintenance requests concerning CCTV cameras in jails. It granted three months to install all proposed CCTV cameras, including 275 cameras at Bikaner Jail and 60 at Jaipur Jail, repair defective cameras and ensure adequate storage and backup systems are functional.
The Prison Department was directed to formulate a standard operating procedure for periodic, intensive and surprise searches for mobile phones across all jails, with institution-wise records of recoveries. The state was also directed to assess the requirement of Challani Guards against the current prison population and initiate time-bound recruitment within three months, and to ensure wages paid to prisoners comply with the Supreme Court's directions.
The state was further directed to ensure functional sanitary napkin vending machines across all women's prisons, and the policy permitting periodic meetings between closely related convicts, such as spouses or parents and children, must be finalised within two months, according to the report.
What happens next now rests on the three-month deadlines: the relief scheme is to be notified, the CCTV installations and repairs completed, and the monitoring committee is to review compliance every quarter.