The Supreme Court of India ruled in a landmark judgment on Thursday that caste-based discrimination within prisons is unconstitutional and struck down provisions in the prison manuals of several states, whereby jobs for inmates were assigned according to their castes.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud declared that such practice violated Article 15 of the Constitution, which was enacted to prevent discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. The court said "Caste cannot be a ground to discriminate against prisoners of marginalised classes in jails as per the state manual.The prisoners shall not be permitted to undertake cleaning of sewers tanks in hazardous conditions.”

The SC asked states to change their prison manuals within three months and warned that they would be accountable for other practices, which still embodied caste-based discrimination. The bench observed that the constitution was violated in practice where menial work like sweeping and sweeping was given to low-caste people while high castes were reserved for cooking. It further observed that prisoners of every caste have a right to fair distribution of work in jails.

Caste-Based Discrimination
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The court said “All such provisions (enabling caste discrimination) are held to be unconstitutional. All states are directed to make changes in accordance with the judgment." The court also directed for the deletion of the caste column from convict and undertrial registers. It ordered that references to habitual offenders in prison manuals should be based on legislative definitions, without reference to caste or tribe.

The Chief Justice said "Segregating prisoners on the basis of caste will reinforce caste discrimination... segregation will not facilitate rehabilitation. Not providing dignity to prisoners is a relic of the colonial system.”

The Union Government was also ordered to make necessary corrections in Model Prison Rules of the Centre to remove caste-based segregation from it. The judgment came on a plea filed by journalist Sukanya Shantha, who has reported extensively on caste-based discrimination in the jail barracks. The petitioner pointed out that prison manuals in many states actually encouraged such discriminations.

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