The Marxist law giving special status to political prisoners in West Bengal may soon be tweaked to avoid threats of its misuse by Maoists and terrorists alike. The Centre has asked Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamul government to revisit the Correctional Services Act, 1992 brought in by the erstwhile Left Front government in West Bengal.
The ministry of home affairs swung into action after a Kolkata court recently declared nine suspected Maoists arrested by the National Investigation Agency for running an arms manufacturing units as “political prisoners”.
The prisoners included CPI(Maoist) top commander Sadula Ramkrishna, who was allegedly responsible for manufacturing rocket launchers for the banned outfit.
The move has raised heckles in the Union home ministry which is now worried that terrorist outfits like the Indian Mujahideen, LTTE, among others may also try to take recourse in the law to guise their acts of violence as “political” while demanding for themselves status of “political prisoners’’ and special treatment under the law.
The MHA has shot off a missive to the West Bengal government to file an appeal against the single judge order in a double judge bench and also take a re-look at the Correctional Services Act immediately.
Interestingly, the court while granting alleged Maoists the status of “political prisoners’’ also proposed to the West Bengal government that it needs to have a re-look on the law on the basis of which it is granting political status. The court refrained itself from striking off the law saying to legislate is the prerogative of the legislature.
The court proposed to the chief secretary of West Bengal to consider that the “classification of prisoners into divisions or classes on the basis of social status, education and habits of life or on the basis of committing a political offence, should be done away with as the prison authorities must not perpetuate inequalities while distributing basic amenities which are necessary for dignified human life, albeit while in prison”.
“Political prisoners or any other prisoners for that matter as a class cannot be put on a higher pedestal or be considered higher in the hierarchy between the prisoners. There can be no distinction of a rich or poor prisoner. Therefore classification of prisoners is also required to be looked into by the state government,” the court said.