LAHORE, Jan 25: A Supreme Court bench ordered on Wednesday that criminal cases against women and children must be decided within six months so that they were not kept confined to prisons unnecessarily. Comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Syed Tasaddaq Husain Jillani, the apex court bench directed registrars of provincial high courts to monitor that cases against women and children were given preference over other cases and disposed of on a priority basis.

The registrars were also directed to send reports to the Supreme Court every month so that the order was implemented in letter and spirit and the court was abreast of the progress on the disposal of such cases.

The apex court issued fresh instructions to high courts while proceeding in a suo moto notice of a letter from women prisoners in the Central Jail Lahore at Kot Lakhpat through which they had portrayed their plight. The women inmates sent the letter to the chief justice who directed the Punjab chief secretary, the home secretary, the health secretary and the inspector-general prisons to submit a comprehensive report on the condition of women in the jails across the province.

The apex court also sent copies of the order to the chief secretaries of the three other provinces with the instruction that they should also submit reports ensuring that steps similar to that of the Punjab were taken for the welfare of women prisoners. These reports would be considered by the apex court in Islamabad during the next proceedings.

The letter stated that 115 women were lodged in a small place, which had a capacity of 50 prisoners. Five of the prisoners were awarded death penalty in murder cases, three were deranged and one was Indian. The women had no medical facility and no judicial officer had visited them since 2004.

The letter stated that 19 children were also living with their mothers in the jail and they did not know what could be the future of the children, who were forced to reside in the prison without committing an offence. The chief justice had framed nine questions for the Punjab government to answer and one of those was about the future of the children.

As for the construction of a new barrack for women prisoners, Seth Abid Husain, the Hamza Foundation chairman, voluntarily offered that he was prepared to get a few barracks constructed by his firm to lodge women and children. He made the offer when the home secretary stated in his report that the Punjab government had an allocation of about Rs1.71 million for the project, which was insufficient.

Seth Abid accompanied Supreme Court Bar Association President Malik Muhammad Qayyum, who was called by court for assistance. The court directed the secretaries of home, health and social welfare departments, besides the IG prisons to associate Seth Abid and the SCBA president in working out the project.

As for health facilities, the court directed the department to ensure the appointment of lady health visitors and a weekly visit by a woman doctor to inmates on a regular basis so that women prisoners were provided with proper medical facility. Earlier, the health secretary submitted that the services of three lady doctors had been placed at disposal of the home department for the purpose and 12 LHVs were being appointed for women in prisons in the province.

CHILDREN: Addressing to the problem of children, the apex court directed the Social Welfare Department to conduct a survey of the status of women prisoners who were residing with children. The court also asked the department to contact other relatives of the children like father, grandparents and aunts to ascertain if they were prepared to keep their children with the condition that they were allowed to visit their mothers in the jail for six to eight hours once in a week.