Bombay: He Maharashtra The government on Monday told the Bombay High Court that under law, no prison in the state follows the solitary confinement system but prisoners convicted of heinous crimes are kept separately.
Public prosecutor Hiten Venegaonkar told a division bench comprising Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj Chavan that people convicted of heinous crimes like bomb blasts etc were kept separately from other inmates.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Himayat Baig, a convict in the 2010 Pune blast case, who claimed that he had been kept in solitary confinement in Nashik Central Jail for the past 12 years and sought to be transferred.
He has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the explosion case.
Venegaonkar told the court that no prison follows solitary confinement.
“Currently, we do not apply solitary confinement. We simply separate prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment for serious and heinous crimes, such as explosions, etc., from other prisoners,” he told the court.
There is a distinction between solitary confinement and separation from other prisoners, he said.
Venegaonkar said that under Section 11 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, only a court that has convicted and sentenced the accused has the power to order him to remain in solitary confinement for not more than three months.
The court directed Venegaonkar to file a brief affidavit stating the same and posted the matter for hearing after two weeks.
Baig was the only person convicted in connection with the February 2010 blast at the German Bakery, a popular restaurant in Pune, in which 17 people were killed and 60 others injured.
Six other accused in the case, including Yasin Bhatkal, who allegedly planted the bomb, remain at large.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Republic and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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