Srinagar- PDP president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has filed a petition before the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, seeking directions for the immediate transfer of all undertrail prisoners from the Union territory who are currently lodged in jails outside J-K.

The plea urges that such prisoners be brought back to local jails unless the authorities present case-specific, written reasons showing compelling necessity to keep them outside J-K, and that such cases be subjected to quarterly judicial review.

“The petitioner being a political activist and a former chief minister, a lot of family members of undertrials have been requesting the petitioner to take up the issue in this petition with the government.

“The petitioner urged the government for the return of undertrial prisoners who are lodged in jails outside J-K but no action has been taken by the government, as a result of which the petitioner in public interest has preferred the present petition and for the said reason this instant petition is maintainable,” Mufti said in her plea.

“The petitioner under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, humbly seeking immediate intervention of this court by writ of Mandamus seeking immediate repatriation and direct respondents, including Union government, J-K home department and DGP to transfer forthwith all under-trial prisoners belonging to J-K who are presently lodged in prisons outside the Union territory to jails within J-K, unless the jail authorities place before this court case-specific, written reasons demonstrating unavoidable, compelling necessity; in such exceptional cases, require quarterly judicial review,” the plea read.

Post the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, Mufti said, numerous J-K residents facing investigation or trial in J-K were lodged in prisons outside the UT.

“FIRs are registered and trials convened within J-K, yet incarceration occurs hundreds of kilometres away, defeating court access, family visits, and counsel conferences, and imposing crippling travel costs on indigent families,” she said in the plea.

She also challenged the continuing practice of lodging undertrials belonging to J-K in prisons outside the Union territory, and said the practice relegates undertrials to a condition worse than convicts, violates the presumption of innocence, and frustrates core Article 21, which guarantees family contact, effective access to counsel, and a meaningful, speedy trial.

“The international and national standards, including the Model Prison Manual, mandate humane treatment, regular family and lawyer interviews, and differential treatment of undertrials from convicts. The continued transfer and housing of J-K undertrials in far-off states systematically denies these guarantees and effectively punishes by process,” she said.

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