Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Newsclick / by MN Parth

Mumbai: On March 23, the Supreme Court of India asked the state governments to decongest prisons in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus inside jail premises. The Maharashtra government, led by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, subsequently constituted a high-power committee (HPC) to decide on the prisoners to be released. However, the decongestion process in Maharashtra seems to be going nowhere.
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1,414 INMATES ABOVE THE AGE OF 60, STATE TELLS HC

The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal

The State government has informed the Bombay High Court that as of Friday, 1,414 inmates lodged in prisons across the State are above the age of 60, while 425 of them have co-morbidities.
Advocate General (AG) Ashutosh Kumbhakoni told a Division Bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice M.S. Karnik that as on May 11, there were 1,340 inmates above 60 years, and as of June 26, the number was 1,414. The court expressed surprised over the numbers, to which the AG replied crime rate has not decreased.
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