On October 3, a Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said that provisions in prison manuals across states that discriminate on the basis of caste are unconstitutional. The court dealt with provisions around labour in prisons, barrack segregation and the targeting of denotified tribes through the vague and arbitrary use of the term ‘habitual offenders’, and said that states must rework their manuals within three months in compliance with the court order.
The court was hearing the public interest litigation filed by The Wire’s Sukanya Shantha, following her investigative work on the state-sanctioned caste-based discrimination and segregation in Indian prisons. In conversation with Jahnavi Sen, Shantha talks about her investigation, the petition that came out of it and salient features of the Supreme Court judgment.
