The court passed the order after hearing a petition filed by advocate Amit Sahni who sought directions for filling the vacant posts of medical officers, welfare officers, counsellors, teachers for education and yoga teachers. The Delhi High Court Wednesday directed the Delhi government and Director General of Prisons to immediately initiate the process for filling the vacancies of various posts in Delhi jails and asked them to disclose the reasons why the positions were not being filled.
Seeking a status report with regard to the sanctioned strength of various posts and the number of vacancies, the division bench of acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla asked the authorities to expedite the process and file a status report within six weeks. It listed the matter for the next hearing on July 18.
The court passed the order after hearing a petition filed by advocate Amit Sahni who sought directions for filling the vacant posts of medical officers, welfare officers, counsellors, teachers for education and yoga teachers. The petition also prayed for the constitution and notifying of the Board of Visitors, Service Board, State Advisory Board and Prison Development Board in accordance with the Delhi Prison Act.
“There is an acute shortage of prison staff and particularly all posts of educational, correctional staff, psychiatric social workers and psychologists are lying vacant for a long time,” Sahni told the court.
Sahni in the petition has cited RTI responses from the government according to which all posts of teachers (6), yoga teachers (2), educational vocational counsellors (2), psychiatric social workers (17), counsellors (40), and wireless operators (5) are vacant. Many posts of clinical psychologists or psychologists are also vacant, as per the RTI response given by authorities to Sahni.
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