Punchhi CJ
, Thomas J
, Wadhwa J
AIR 1998 SC 3164
The appellant appealed against a High Court decision that denying wages for prisoners undertaking hard labour at rates prescribed under the Minimum Wages law infringed the constitutional protection against exaction of forced labour (Art 23, Constitution of India).
Held that:
Per the Court:
Under Art 23(2) it is only lawful to employ prisoners who have been sentenced to rigorous punishment by a court of law to undertake hard labour regardless of that prisoner's consent. However, a prisoner undertaking hard labour must be paid equitable wages for the work. Consequently, States must create a wage-fixation body to make recommendations to quantify what constitutes equitable wages as soon as possible and in the interim the government must fix the rate of wages. The practice of diverting wages to the prisoner's dependant family is approved and the States should also enact law to divert a portion of wages to deserving victims.
Per Thomas J:
Art 23(2) authorises rigorous punishment only if it can be justified as a necessity to achieve some public purpose. Reformation should be the dominant objective of incarceration and will be served by rigorous punishment where the prisoner anticipates that it will result in savings to help with rehabilitation on release. Thus, hard labour serves a public purpose under Art 23(2). A prisoner cannot do labour free of wages and the Minimum Wages Act must be taken into account to decide the quantum of wages. The request that the State can deduct a percentage from the wages earned for foods and clothes is reasonable.
Lawyers
Soli J. Sorabji, Attorney General, Dr. N.M. Ghatate, (Kapil Sibal), (AC), A.S. Nambiar, N.N. Goswami, Dr. Rajeev Dhawan, Sr. Advocates., Ms. Meenakshi Arora, Ms. H. Wahi, Ms. Sumita Hazarika, G. Prakash, Aruneshwar Gupta, Ms. Reena Bagga, Srilok Nath Rath, Manoj K. Das, Dr. Nafis A. Siddiqui, H. K. Puri, Rajesh Srivastava, Ujjwal Banerjee, (R.B.B. Ray), Advocate (AC) (NP), Ashok Kumar Sharma, P. Parmeswaran, Gopal Jain, Devika Bezbarwah, Arun Sharma, B. K. Prasad, D. S. Mehra, L. R. Singh, S. K. Mehta, Dhruv Mehta, Fazlin Anam, Ms. Shobha, A. K. Jha, M. Veerappa, K. H. Nobir Singh, S. K. Agnihotri, Naveen Kumar Singh, Sakesh Kumar, Uma Nath Singh, Kailash Vasdev, C. K. Sasi, K. B. Rohtagi, Ms. Aparna Rohtagi Jain, Gopal Singh, A. Mariarputham, Ms. Aruna Mathur, V. G. Pragasam, Ranjan Mukherjee, Ms. S. Janani, Ms. Bina Gupta, S. K. Nandy, Dilip Sinha, J. R. Das, K. Swami, C.V.S Rao, M.T. George, Ms A. Subhashioi, N.K. Sharma, K.V. Venkataraman, L.R. Singh, R. Sathish, R.B. Misra, Kamlendra Misra, N. Ganpathy, P.N. Misra, S.A. Syed, Ashok Mathur, T. Sricharan, T.A. Khan, D.M. Nargolkar, G. Prabhakar, Ms. Lira Goswami, Ms. Ameeta Duggal, Rajiv Mehta, R.S. Sodhi, Jasbir Malik, Prem Malhotra, Anil Shrivastav, Sunil Kumar Jain, Vijay Hansaria, J.K. Bhatia, B.B. Singh, Ashok Mathur, Advocates
Other Legal Provisions
India, Supreme Court, 24 Sep 1998<BR>LIBERTY & SECURITY - sentencing
Other Legal Provisions
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, (UDHR), 1948, Art 4
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, (ICCPR), 1966, Art 8
European Convention on Human Rights, (ECHR), 1950, Arts 4, 5
United Nations on Prison Conditions, 1955
