The committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of the Director-General of Prisons and Correctional Services to conduct a study on the issue of the right of companionship or conjugal visit despite being in prison or having been convicted, as directed by the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court.

The superintendents of all Central Prisons and special prisons for women are appointed as nodal officers for collecting the details. However, given the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the committee members were unable to visit the prisons and hence have prepared a questionnaire to collect the details from the inmates, guards and others concerned. The superintendents will be collecting the details in the prescribed questionnaire with the help of psychologists in the prisons.

It is not yet clear if the prison department is planning to make the conjugal visit a part of the parole or will allow the spouse to visit the jail and meet the prisoner in complete privacy.

In the order by the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court, it was observed that psychologists and psychiatrists believed that frustration, tension and ill feelings could be reduced if prisoners were allowed conjugal relationship. Conjugal visits would lead to strong family bonding and a few countries recognised this as a right of the prisoner, the court said.

Such conjugal visits would maintain a relationship between the prisoner and the family, reduce recidivism and motivate them towards good behaviour, the Bench had observed.