CHENNAI: The inquiry held by the District Legal Services Authorities has found that certain prisoners, who had escaped from the Theni district prison and surrendered later, had suffered injuries due to alleged torture in the prison.
The District Legal Services Authorities (DLSAs) in Salem and Tirunelveli districts have held the inquiries following the directions of a division bench of Justices AD Jagadish Chandira and B Karthikeyan while hearing a petition filed by Arumugathammal, mother of two of the prisoners, seeking a judicial inquiry into the jail break and providing the required medical treatment to them at the medical colleges in Salem and Tirunelveli.
The court had also ordered the DLSA chairpersons to visit the prisons along with a team of three doctors from the government medical college hospitals in Salem and Tirunelveli.
As per the orders, the Principal District Judge, Salem, and the Chairperson of the DLSA, Tirunelveli, have filed the inquiry reports in the court.
“A perusal of the interim reports prima facie discloses that the prisoners had sustained injuries,” the bench said in an order passed on Tuesday.
It noted that the Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority (TNSLSA) has called for comprehensive reports from the DLSAs of Theni, Cuddalore, Madurai, Salem and Tirunelveli.
Since the comprehensive reports from the respective District Legal Services Authorities are awaited, this Court deems it fit to pass further orders on receipt of reports from the TNSLSA and DLSAs, it said.
“In the meanwhile, the respective Deans are directed to ensure that appropriate and requisite medical treatment continues to be provided to the injured prisoners,” it said in the order.
The bench directed the prison authorities to extend full cooperation to the doctors in providing effective treatment to the prisoners, and said this shall be monitored by the respective chairpersons of the DLSAs.
Advocate P Pugalenthi appeared for the petitioner, Arumugathammal, of Madurai. She alleged that her sons, Meenakshisundaram and Thirupathi, were arrested by the police along with Solai Mugileswaran and Sabarinathan and had been locked up in the Theni district jail.
She said her sons and co-prisoners had faced several problems, including poor-quality food, and were thrashed when they raised the issue.
A day after surrendering, on October 29, they were allegedly subjected to “severe physical assault” by the prison warders, the petitioner alleged, adding that all 17 escaped prisoners were assaulted by warders Lakshmanan, Karthik and Arun, who came from Madurai.
She prayed for the court to order a judicial inquiry under the supervision of the court into the assault on the prisoners, since an inquiry conducted by the very same Prison Department authorities may not result in justice being rendered to the affected persons.
