This is an interim compliance order in a pending suo motu case. It records no finding on whether discrimination exists inside any prison, decides no question on the merits of the suo motu proceedings, and issues no direction to any individual prisoner or prison. It only fixes the process by which States and Union Territories must report on the oversight mechanisms the Court had earlier directed.
- Case
- In re: Discrimination Inside Prisons in India
- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Decision
- Bench
- J.B. Pardiwala; Manmohan
- Case numbers
- SMW(C) No. 10/2024; Diary No. 48023/2024
- Outcome
- Record of proceedings dated 3 November 2026 in SMW(C) No. 10/2024 (In re: Discrimination Inside Prisons in India): fresh status report taken on record; States and Union Territories given one last opportunity to respond to the Union’s queries; matter listed for further hearing on 13 January 2027.
One last opportunity, with personal appearance in view
The Supreme Court has given all States and Union Territories one last opportunity to respond immediately to the queries raised by the Union of India on prison oversight, after recording that 23 States and Union Territories have yet to reply to the information the Union Home Ministry called for.
A Bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manmohan made the order on 3 November 2026 in the suo motu proceedings on discrimination inside prisons in India. The Court said it would be compelled to direct the Chief Secretaries and Principal Secretaries of all the States and Union Territories to remain personally present before it if they do not respond by the next date of hearing.
The matter is listed for further hearing on 13 January 2027. By then, the Union is to file one composite report setting out what steps have been taken so far in pursuance of the Court’s orders and what further remains to be done.
A suo motu case on discrimination inside prisons
The proceedings began on the Court’s own motion as SMW(C) No. 10 of 2024, titled In re: Discrimination Inside Prisons in India. Dr. S. Muralidhar appears as amicus curiae, and C.U. Singh, senior counsel, appears for some of the intervenors.
On 3 November 2026 the Court heard the amicus, the intervenors’ counsel, and Aishwarya Bhati, Additional Solicitor General, appearing for the Union of India. The hearing was a compliance review of directions the Court had issued earlier, by orders dated 30 July 2026 and 10 September 2026.
The order records no finding on the substance of the discrimination the suo motu proceedings concern. The hearing was confined to the state of compliance with the Court’s earlier directions on oversight mechanisms.
What the Home Ministry’s fresh report says
The Additional Solicitor General filed a fresh status report by way of an affidavit affirmed by the Legal Officer of the Ministry of Home Affairs, highlighting further progress in the matter. The report was filed in pursuance of the Court’s orders of 30 July and 10 September 2026.
The report highlights issues relating to Police Regulations, similar to the Madhya Pradesh Police Regulations, 1937, and to District-wise Boards of Visitors. It also indicates the steps taken on Police Regulations and Standing Orders by the Police Modernisation Division of the Ministry.
The Ministry had addressed letters to the Additional Chief Secretaries, Principal Secretaries (Home) and Home Secretaries, and to the Directors General of Police and heads of police, of all the respective States and Union Territories. The order records that, unfortunately, 23 States and Union Territories have yet to reply to the information called for.
The compliance gap: States that have not replied
The issue before the Court on 3 November was not the merits of the discrimination alleged in the suo motu proceedings, but whether the States and Union Territories were complying with the reporting the Court had directed.
The amicus brought to the Court’s notice that the States and Union Territories are obliged to respond with an appropriate affidavit or report on what steps have been taken on the formation of District-wise Boards of Visitors. The Court observed that it was “very sad” that the States and Union Territories are not responding to the Home Ministry of the Union.
The gap matters because the Union’s composite report — the document through which the Court tracks compliance across the country — cannot be prepared until the States supply the information the Ministry asked for.
What the Court directed on 3 November
The Court gave one last opportunity to all the States and Union Territories to immediately respond to the various queries raised by the Union on different issues. The responses are to enable the Union to file one composite report highlighting what steps have been taken so far in pursuance of the Court’s orders, and what further is required to be done “to give meaningful effect to the cause which this Court has taken up Suo Moto”.
The Court made it clear that if the States and Union Territories do not respond by the next date of hearing, it will compel the Chief Secretaries and Principal Secretaries of all the States and Union Territories to personally remain present before the Court.
Copies of the order were directed to be furnished to the Additional Solicitor General for onward communication, and to the amicus curiae and to the senior counsel appearing for some of the intervenors.
BANTHRY ANALYSISWhy Boards of Visitors are the centre of this order
Boards of Visitors are the external oversight bodies for prisons: their members visit prisons, hear prisoners, and report on conditions. The formation of District-wise Boards of Visitors is therefore the concrete, verifiable step the Court is tracking — a board either exists for a district or it does not, and a State either reports on it or it does not.
That is why the order’s operative content is procedural rather than declaratory. The Court is not, in this order, deciding what counts as discrimination inside a prison, or what remedy follows. It is building the record on which such decisions can later rest, and it is using the threat of personal appearance by the most senior civil servants to make States supply that record.
The reference to Police Regulations similar to the Madhya Pradesh Police Regulations, 1937, points to the same project from a different angle: the rules that govern how prisons are run day to day, and whether those rules themselves need to change.
BANTHRY ANALYSISWhat happens next, and what this order does not decide
The next step is the States’ responses, followed by the Union’s composite report, and the further hearing on 13 January 2027. If the responses do not arrive, the Court has said the Chief Secretaries and Principal Secretaries will be called to appear in person.
Nothing in this order decides whether any prisoner has been discriminated against, what the content of a non-discriminatory prison regime must be, or what relief any prisoner is entitled to. Those questions remain pending in the suo motu proceedings, and any answer to them will have to come from a later order on the merits.
For law students, the order is a study in how the Court enforces compliance in a continuing suo motu matter: it does not decide the substantive question at every hearing, but it uses status reports, fixed deadlines, and the personal-appearance device to keep the executive’s reporting machinery moving.
READING PROMPTSQuestions for a closer reading
- What two oversight subjects does the Home Ministry’s fresh status report cover, and which earlier orders of the Court was it filed in pursuance of?
- What exactly must the States and Union Territories do under the 3 November order, and what consequence does the Court say will follow if they do not respond by the next date?
- Why does the Court say a composite report from the Union is needed, and what does the order leave undecided?
