BISHAL DAS Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are under-trial prisoners in custody for over three years in connection with different offences, being co-accused in a trial before the Additional Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court (1st), Hooghly on charges of kidnapping and murder and are being held in the Chinsurah District Correctional Home at Hooghly. A number of other criminal cases are also pending against them in other Districts of the State of West Bengal, particularly in South 24-Parganas. The grievances of the petitioners are the conditions of their incarceration.

(2.) It is alleged that despite several requests, the living conditions of the petitioners are not being improved in any manner by the Jail Authorities. The petitioners also pray for being transferred to any other safer correctional home than their present abode in the Hooghly District correctional Home and apprehend safety and security risks in their present place of confinement.

(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that although the Sessions Court has not granted the petitioners" prayer for bail, including a prayer for transfer, on consideration of a report submitted by the Superintendent of the Hooghly Correctional Home, it is argued that the jurisdictional court does not have the authority in law under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 or any other Act to issue order of transfer of prisoners to a different jail, which is an administrative act, amenable to the writ jurisdiction.