Former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister and PDP President Mehbooba Mufti has knocked the doors of the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, filing a public interest litigation (PIL). The PIL seeks urgent judicial relief for undertrial prisoners from J&K who are currently locked up in jails outside the Union Territory.
Her plea says that this practice of keeping J&K’s undertrials in prisons far away violates their fundamental rights under Articles 14 and 21 of the Indian Constitution, including their ability to keep contact with family, consult with lawyers, and receive a fair, speedy trial.
Mehbooba Mufti’s petition highlights the situation post 5th August, 2019, when J&K’s special status was revoked and the region became a Union Territory. After this, many residents of J&K facing police investigation or trial were shifted to prisons across India, sometimes thousands of kilometres away from where their cases were actually being heard.
The result, as the PIL spells out, is that these detainees face enormous hurdles, access to the courts becomes impractical, families can’t afford regular travel for visits, and arranging private meetings with lawyers (especially when evidence is complex and there are many witnesses) is almost impossible.
For many families, the cost and effort required to visit their relatives in distant prisons just isn’t possible, meaning the process of trial itself has become like a punishment.
Through her counsel, Aditya Gupta, Mehbooba Mufti has urged the High Court to step in, arguing that this continued use of out-of-state prisons for undertrials is “punishment by process.”
The plea points out that these actions violate not only domestic standards laid out by the Supreme Court and the Model Prison Manual (which guarantee fair treatment, family visits, and legal access for prisoners), but also international principles related to the humane treatment of accused persons.
The plea also highlights that several of these cases involve extensive evidence and multiple witnesses, which require constant and private communication between the accused and their lawyers. However, when the undertrials are lodged in distant states, such communication becomes practically impossible.
