Prisoners Conjugal Rights: Humanitarian Approach In Indian Viewpoint

Mamatha. R, Assistant Professor, School of Law, Alliance University

ABSTRACT

Man is a social being. A prison is a place where the administration of justices tries to do justice to the victims by punishing the accused. Punishment means suffering for the crime committed. The state has the responsibility of protecting the fundamental rights of citizens including prisoners. Prisoners have a huge number of rights to ensure their dignity and privacy. Most of the rights are protected only a few of them are restricted under the Indian constitution.

All human beings including prisoners have the basic right to procreate mentioned under UDHR. In India, conjugal rights are recognised under personal law but not under Criminal law. There are no statutory provisions that confer conjugal rights to the prisoners. Under Article 21 it is in the growing stage, some of the courts have recognised and some have rejected. there is a dilemma in recognising the conjugal rights of the prisoners and of their family members.

This paper tries to look into the various rights available to prisoners, and why the supreme court is not able to recognise the conjugal rights of the prisoners.

Keywords: prisoner, conjugal rights, rights to procreate, Human rights, judiciary etc.