NHRC issues notice to UP government on chaining of aged, ailing prisoner

Lucknow: The National Human Rights Commission issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government seeking a response over the chaining of 84-year-old ailing jailed convict Baburam Balram Singh at a hospital bed in Etah district. The notice sent to the chief secretary of UP seeks a report on the time of the last meeting of the Sentence Review Board, the number of cases pending before it, sentences commuted in 2020 and 2019 and the system followed in jails for referring matters to the board. The state must give a response within six weeks.

"Keeping such an old and ill prisoner in jail indicates that the Sentence Review Board in the state is malfunctioning," the notice said. The visuals of the frail, ailing Singh chained to a hospital bed in Etah went viral on social media on May 13. He was later found tied to a hospital bed in a non-Covid-19 ward of the hospital.

Anand Kumar, the director-general (prisons), had suspended the jail warder over the matter and ordered an inquiry. Though it was earlier reported that the old man is 84 years old, the NHRC has mentioned that his age is 92 based on the complaint. The commission further observed that the government has powers to commute the sentence through the board under section 433 of CrPC and Prison Rules. The functioning of the board must be improved for the protection of the human rights of prisoners and decongesting jails to relieve the government from the burden of taking care of old and ill inmates, they added.