Another Ban Failed: India Prison Smoking Ban Lifted

State prisons out of the purview of smoking ban

October 1, 2007
K.P.M. Basheer

Government order draws flak from NGOs.? Rights organisations call it discriminatory.

KOCHI: Prisoners in Kerala’s jails are now free to smoke, following the State government’s recent lifting of the ban on smoking on jail premises.

This, however, has drawn the flak of NGOs that campaign against smoking. Human rights organisations call it discriminatory and retrograde in a State where smoking at public places has been banned for several years. Critics allege that the lifting of the ban was under political pressure and is with a view to helping the large number of Left cadres who serve prison terms, particularly at the Central Prison, Kannur.

In just a 10-word Government Order — GO (MS No. 145/2007/Home dated June 23 — issued by Additional Chief Secretary K.J. Mathew, the smoke ban in jails has been turned upside down. “The Government Order read above is cancelled with immediate effect,” the GO said, quoting the April 20, 2005 order, which banned smoking, as reference.

A High Court division bench had on Wednesday, while hearing a parole case, wondered whether smoking could be allowed in jails and pointed out that the court had banned smoking at `public places.’ Director General of Prosecutions P.G. Thampi told the court that those who serve solitary long-term imprisonments having a beedi could not be faulted.

The government had banned smoking in jails on a recommendation by the Director General of Police in charge of prisons. The April 20, 2005, order had noted: “Section 4 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition etc.) Act, 2003, prohibits smoking in any public place defined in Section 3 (1), any place to which the public have access, whether as of right or not, and included auditorium, hospital buildings, jails, etc. By virtue of this no person shall smoke in the jails also.”

Therefore, the GO said, “government is pleased to order that smoking in all jails and on jail premises in Kerala will be prohibited in order to strictly adhere to the above said provision of the Act with immediate effect.”

It is this order that the government has struck down with the one-sentence order of June 23. The High Court had in 1999 banned smoking at public places, which included hospitals and auditoriums. The Supreme Court had later upheld the ban. In view of the order lifting the ban on smoking in jails, it could be surmised that jails and jail premises do not come under the definition of `public place.’

The Kochi-based Human Rights Defence Forum is planning to challenge the order in court. HRDF functionary D.B. Binu wondered how could jails be declassified as public place when hospitals and auditoriums are reckoned as public places.

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Kerala to lift ban on smoking in jails

June 21, 2007

Buckling under pressure from Left party cadres, Kerala Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan on Thursday announced that a ban on smoking in jails would be lifted soon.

“We will very soon lift the present smoking ban in jails,” Balakrishnan said in reply to a question in the state assembly.

The ban was imposed in 2003 following a high court order by the then Oommen Chandy government.

Ever since the Left assumed power in May last year the government was under pressure from party cadres to lift the ban. Kerala has 22 jails with about 6,504 inmates, and many of them are Left sympathisers.

According to reports, Balakrishnan made the announcement after getting a green signal from the law department.

However, a very strong anti-smoking lobby in the state could take up lifting of the ban in court.

MP prisons to impose smoking ban
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By S Sanjay in Bhopal
13 December, 2005
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With the Madhya Pradesh government imposing a blanket ban on smoking by prisoners and jail staff in the jail premises, “No smoking” signboards would soon be put up in prisons all over Madhya Pradesh.
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Considering the health hazards of tobacco and tobacco products, the Jail department has now decided not to provide tobacco products to the prisoners under its jail reformation drive.

I t has been a practice to provide five beedis per day to each prisoner in MP jails. This three decades-old practice and providing tobacco for chewing will go now and the prisoners would be provided with eatables worth the same cost.

Not only the State Government has stopped providing tobacco or the products made by it, it would also not allow in the jail premises the tobacco products brought by the visitors of prisoners.

“Our jails already hold almost double the capacity. In this situation when the smokers light the beedi or cigarette, the co-inmates in the small barracks face problems. Moreover, the guidelines of Supreme Court clearly states that there should be no smoking in public places,” a jail official said.

State DIG (Prisons) R S Vijayvargiya said that the government directives have been sent to all the 113 jails for implementation. The Jail superintendents have been asked to follow the guidelines strictly. Strict disciplinary action would be taken against the jail personnel, if the prisoners were found smoking.