HC seeks response of Tihar Jail on Pinjra Tod member’s plea for legal assistance with lawyers
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Thursday sought response of Tihar Jail on plea by a woman member of the Pinjra Tod group, who was arrested in a case related to the communal violence in North East Delhi, seeking daily access to her lawyer and carry books and reading material in prison.
Justice C Hari Shankar, who conducted the hearing through video conferencing, issued notice to the Tihar Jail authorities on the plea of JNU student Natasha Narwal and listed the matter for further hearing on June 24.
It is pertinent to mention that legal interviews of inmates with their lawyers were suspended in Delhi prisons in view of the COVID 19 pandemic. Pinjra Tod (Break the Cage) was founded in 2015 with an aim to make hostels and paying guest accommodations less restrictive for women students. In 2015, Jamia Millia Islamia University had issued a notice restricting female students to stay out after 8 pm. When the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) questioned the Jamia administration on it, a group of women students decided to protest against the restrictions not only in Jamia but other universities in Delhi.
Later named as Pinjra Tod, the group mobilised people around several issues faced by female residents of hostels and PGS. Narwal, who is currently lodged in Tihar jail under judicial custody, along with another JNU student and member of the group Devangana Kalitha were arrested by the Delhi Police on May 23 in connection with a protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in North East Delhi’s Jafrabad area in February.
On May 24, they were granted bail by the trial court in the case, but moments later the Delhi Police crime branch had moved an application seeking to interrogate them and formally arrest them in a separate case. In her plea, Narwal has sought direction to the Tihar Jail to allow her daily access to her advocates by way of video conferencing as the video-link system is already set-up in the prison premises.