The Bombay High Court declared on Thursday that access to clean drinking water is a fundamental human right and ordered the Taloja Central Prison in Navi Mumbai to make it available to all inmates housed there.
A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Gauri Godse noted that the Taloja jail inmates cannot be expected to use water being provided for bathing and washing for drinking purposes, too.
Priority is clean drinking water. It is their basic right. It has to be separate from other water which is used for washing etc. You cannot include drinking water with the other water. We do not understand how drinking water can be the same, the court observed. The bench also directed the prison authorities to consider not measuring the amount of drinking water provided to the inmates and to consider increasing the amount. The court was hearing a petition filed by an inmate, Abhay Kurundkar, claiming they are not being provided with clean drinking water in the prison which comes under the jurisdiction of Raigad district.
The bench had earlier this week directed the secretary of the Raigad district legal services authority (DLSA) to verify the claims made by the petitioner. On Thursday, the court perused the report submitted by the secretary which claimed water was being stored in Sintex tanks in the prison and then kept in buckets provided to the inmates. The report said there was dirt in the water. Is that adequate? How do you expect them to do everything in that one bucket of water. There is cleanliness, hygiene to be looked at, the bench remarked.