The Gujarat High Court Thursday asked the authorities to furnish a report on the condition of a convict who is suffering from gangrene allegedly due to lack of care and treatment by the jail authorities.
The court also sought from the authorities a report on whether state hospitals are equipped to treat prisoners.
The petitioner, Ajit Patel, an inmate in Vadodara Central Jail, submitted in his petition before the court that jail authorities did not take him to the hospital on a regular basis.
A division bench of Justice Jayant Patel and Justice Z.K. Saiyed said that failure to make requisite medical facilities available in government hospitals can prima facie be said to be failure to maintain basic human conditions in jails.
‘It is the duty of the state to make arrangements for transferring the prisoner either to a nearby government hospital or to a nearby jail, where the treatment can be provided’, it noted.
The petitioner, who suffers from kidney ailment, had submitted that he was taken to the hospital on 25 counts against the request of 35.
The petitioner alleged that prisoners have to spend on their own treatment.
