NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has asked the city government to respond to a PIL seeking to hold conjugal visits as a fundamental right of prisoners lodged in jails in the national capital.
A conjugal visit, which may also be referred to as “Private Family Visiting”, is wherein a jail inmate gets to spend time in private with a visitor, usually a legal partner/spouse and may engage sexually.
A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula, in a recent order granted six weeks’ time to the government to seek instructions in the plea. The matter will be further heard on October 9.
The plea moved by lawyer Amit Sahni contended that Conjugal Visitation Rights are not provided in Delhi jails though most of the prisoners fall under the sexually active age group i.e. 21-50 years.
The conjugal visit cannot be denied to prisoners on the ground of already existing provisions of parole and furlough, which in any case, are not available to undertrial prisoners.
Conjugal visits are to meet one of the basic human needs, the plea stated. The denial of conjugal rights to inmates would lead to sex crimes in jails, which often result in riots, and the spreading of HIV infection, the plea stated Challenging Rule 608, Delhi Prison Rules, 2018, Sahni said the rule does not provide a private meeting of an inmate with his/her spouse. It provides meetings to be done under the supervision of the Prison Officer.
