Gauhati HC seeks report on detention centres to be set up outside jails

GUWAHATI: The Gauhati high court, while hearing a writ petition on how authorities are required to operate detention centres, upheld the Centre’s directives based on the Supreme Court’s order that detention units should be set up outside the jail premises and directed the state to submit an action taken report by October 16 when the case will be heard next.
Justice Achintya Malla Bujor Barua on Wednesday asked the state government’s home and political affairs department to submit the report detailing the steps that have been taken to set up detention centres outside jails and added that if suitable government accommodations are not available for the purpose, “the authorities may also be required to hire any private premises for it.”
The court noted, “The Supreme Court had clearly provided that the detainees be kept at an appropriate place with restricted movements pending their deportation/repatriation and the places where they are to be kept may be detention centres or whatever name such places are called but must have the basic facilities of electricity, water and hygiene etc”
It informed that in compliance with the Supreme Court’s directive, the ministry of home affairs issued orders to all state government in 2012 that such category of persons be released from jail immediately and they may be kept at an appropriate place outside the jail premises with restricted movement pending repatriation as the Supreme Court had clearly provided that if such persons cannot be repatriated and have to be kept in jail, they cannot be confined to prison and be deprived of the basic human rights and human dignity.
The court, while noting that “there is a requirement on the part of the state authorities to set up the detention centres,” said it cannot accept the state government’s submission that as a temporary measure, a specific area in the jail premises has to be earmarked as detention centres.
“Certainly a period of more than 10 years cannot be understood to be a temporary arrangement. Even in respect of Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Tezpur a period of 5 years is almost over which also again cannot be strictly said to be a temporary arrangement,” the court’s order read. It added, “It cannot be accepted that the respondents can still rely upon the communication dated 07.09.2018 to project the case that it would be permissible to declare a part of the jail premises to be detention centres.”
Detention camps in Assam are housed within district jails but the detainees are kept separately from other inmates.
Abantee Dutta, co-founder and director of Studio Nilima who is one of the petitioners, said, “The idea of the petitions came at a civil society meeting to discuss the post-NRC scenario of Assam when one of the participants urged the gathering to contemplate if the state was on its way to becoming an exhibition site of detention centres for the world to see.”
She added, “We owe today’s victory to that provocation which brought all of us together to file this batch of petitions. Congratulations due to Santanu Borthakur, Mustafa Khaddam Hussain, Aman Wadud and the team at Studio Nilima.”
(With inputs from Rokibuz Zaman)