Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Mr vs Tripathy ...For The High Court Admn on 8 April, 2021
08/04/2021
Item No.1 (t)
Court No.1.
AB/S DE
Through Video Conference
W.P.A. (P) 27 of 2021
The Court on its own Motion :
In re : UTP Dipak Joshi lodged in
Dum Dum Central Correctional Home
Mr. Saikat Banerjee,
Mr. V. Tripathy ...for the High Court Admn.
Mr. Jayanta Narayan Chatterjee,
Mr. Apalak Basu,
Ms. Nandini Chatterjee,
Ms. Jayashree Patra,
Mr. Swagata Das,
Ms. Ritusree Banerjee ...for the SLSA.
We have before us a bunch of papers with a
covering letter dated 31.03.2021 addressed by the
Superintendent, Dum Dum Central Correctional Home
to the learned Advocate appearing for the Government
of West Bengal. However, we have no effective
assistance from the State when this matter is called on
today.
We have made our earnest efforts to assess the
tabular statements placed along with that report.
The report says that Annexure "A" is a list of
Mentally Ill Inmates in the format desired vide Para 5
of the Order. That Para (Paragraph 5) of the Order
dated 25.03.2021 had specifically called for data
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regarding four indicators which are of critical
importance to proceed forward with this matter. We
wanted to know the age of the detenue, the provision
of law as to the alleged offence, date of arrest and the
view of the competent authority as to whether each of
such persons is fit to stand trial. The tabular
statement, which is Annexure "A" to the report given to
the Government Advocate by the Superintendent of
Dum Dum Correctional Home, does not contain the
date of arrest of any of the detenues.
We see that the DLSA has forwarded essentially
a copy of the said material provided by the Dum Dum
Correctional Home. This is not the modality in which
we expect the DLSAs to function while assisting in
such critically important matters. The DLSA had
forwarded the materials to the Member Secretary,
SLSA, who, in turn, has simply passed on those
materials to the Counsel appearing for SLSA.
Meaningful proactive roles are expected to be
performed by the officials in the SLSA and DLSAs and
other legal service institutions in terms of the
provisions of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987.
We are pained that there is institutional
shortage in the manner in which the Legal Service
Authorities have placed the report before us even
without cross-checking whether the contents are in
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conformity with what we had desired and called for
through our order dated 25.03.2021.
Be that as it may, in Paragraph 5 of the order
dated 25.03.2021 specific reference was made to
Chapter XXV of the Cr.P.C. thereby drawing the
attention of the authorities to those provisions.
Chapter XXV of Cr.P.C. contains a provision as to
accused persons of unsound mind. The data given by
SLSA or the Dum Dum Correctional Home does not
contain the date of the last assessment of each of the
persons enlisted. Obviously, we are not able to further
proceed with such issues as well.
When critically important matters are handled
on the Judicial Side as Public Interest Litigation, we
need better assistance from the State Government
authorities including the Correctional Homes as well
as the Legal Service Institutions under the Legal
Services Authorities Act, 1987.
We, under the given circumstances, are
compelled to adjourn this matter to enable the SLSA
and the DLSA concerned as well as the State
Government and its Officers including the Correctional
Home Authorities as well as the Additional Director
General and Inspector General of Police, Correctional
Services, West Bengal, to bring to our notice further
materials, which will be required to deal with all issues
which are reflected in the orders dated 22.3.2021 and
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25.3.2021. Such materials shall be made available without fail when this case would be called on as the first item on 13.04.2021. If that is not found to be possible, let all those Officers concerned be present before this Court to answer any query, the Bench may raise in relation to any of the detenues.
We also alert that no shortage of data will be tolerated by us since any such discounting of responsibilities will amount to breaching our Constitutional and public duty to do justice to the mentally ill persons.
List this matter for further consideration on 13.4.2021 at the top.
The Registry will communicate this order to the Office of learned Advocate General, SLSA, DLSA, Dum Dum Correctional Home and the Additional Director General & Inspector General of Police, Correctional Services, West Bengal, forthwith by email or other mode.
[Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan, C.J.] [Arijit Banerjee, J.]