IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT HYDERABAD FOR THE STATE

OF TELANGANA AND FOR THE STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION
W.P.No.

of 2014

BETWEEN:
M. Salahuddin Ayub (aged 53 years),
S/o Sadiq Zaheeruddin,
Plot No. 259/A, MLA Colony,
Rd No. 12, Banjara Hills,
Hyderabad 500034
PETITIONER
AND
1. The State of Telangana
2. The Government of Telangana, Represented by the Principal Secretary to
Government, Home Department, T.G. Secretariat, Hyderabad.
3. Director of Medical and Health Services, Telangana State
4. The Director General and Inspector General Prisons and Director of
Correctional Services, T.G., Hyderabad.
...RESPONDENTS
AFFIDAVIT
I, M. Salahuddin Ayub S/o Sadiq Zaheeruddin, Aged 53 years, R/o Plot No. 259/A,
MLA Colony, Road No.12, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad 500034 do hereby solemnly
and sincerely affirm and state as follows:
1. I submit that I am the Petitioner herein and as such I am well acquainted with
the facts of the case. The petitioner-herein was an inmate of the Central Prison,
Cherlapally as an Under-Trial prisoner (UT-2054 & UT-8493) and was a victim
of negligence, incompetence and callousness on the part of the prison authorities
to provide proper medical care.
2. I respectfully submit that I have no personal grudge against any of the
authorities and the filing of this PIL should not be construed as an act done in
vengeance. The sole objective behind filing of this PIL is to highlight the plight
of prison inmates who are regularly exposed to gross violations of their
Constitutional Rights.
3. I respectfully submit that this Public Interest Litigation is to highlight the
suspicious and unexplained deaths of 23 inmates in the current calendar year
where the underlying reasons cited by the prison authorities are far from
realistic.

4. I respectfully submit that in this calendar year alone 23 inmates of the

Central Prison, Cherlapally were either pronounced dead upon arrival at
the Gandhi Hospital or died within a hours/day of their admission to the
hospital. To reconfirm the same, I invoked my right under RTI Act on 17Sep-2014 and sought preliminary information from the Prison on an SOS
basis, which is enclosed herewith.
5. As per reply of the Prison Authorities dated 17-Sep-2014:
a. 7 deaths occurred while transporting the patients to the hospital.
b. 7 deaths occurred within 24 hours of admission to the hospital.
c. 9 deaths occurred after 24 hours of admission to the hospital.
6. Further, as per the reply of the Prison Authorities the following posts are lying
vacant in the Prison Hospital:
Name of the Post
Sanctioned
Working
Vacant
Asst. Civil Surgeon
03
NIL
03
Psychiatrist
01
01
NIL
Dentist
01
01
NIL
Pathologist
01
NIL
01
Lab Technician
01
NIL
01
Pharmacist
02
01
01
MNOs
06
05
01
Ambulance Driver
02
NIL
02
Officer Subordinate
02
NIL
02
As can be observed from the above table, the key requirements of Asst. Civil
Surgeons, Pathologist and Ambulance Drivers are lying vacant thus effectively
making the Prison Hospital and emergency services null and void. The
approximately 2000 unfortunate inmates of the Prison have no other choice but
to silently suffer their ailments and some eventually face death. The State is fully
responsible for all these sufferings within the prison and for every death that
occurs.
7. In reality, most deaths usually occur within the confines of the prison but
the same is covered-up and enacted by the prison authorities to look like as
if the patient died during transit and the Gandhi Hospital certifies the same
as Brought Dead. Gandhi Hospital is located at a driving distance of
about 14kms or about 30 minutes of drive.
8. Out of the 23 deaths this calendar year, 10 died between 05-Aug-2014 to 15Sep-2014, a period of 40 days. And many of them young adults between the
ages of 20 to 35 years in age.
9. I respectfully submit that all these deaths occurred under mysterious, suspicious
and unexplained circumstances due to the deliberate omissions/commissions,
failures, neglect and incompetence of the State, thus amounting to criminal
negligence.

10. The details of the inmates who have died in these suspicious and negligent
circumstances are:
#

Prison ID
Number

UT-9620

CT-6916

CT-3801

CT-1588

UT-2513

UT-588

UT-2632

UT-4343

UT-3946

10

CT-317

11

CT-7962

12

CT-1864

13

CT-1834

14

CT-5277

15

CT-2037

16

CT-9981

17

UT-2467

18

UT-5579

19

UT-7446

20

CT-7623

21

UT-6696

22

UT-4599

23

CT-6918

Name of the Inmate

& Fathers Name
Mohammed Habeeb
S/o Hidayat Ali
K Sreenu
S/o Venkaiah
A.Venkateshwarlu
S/o Karranna
G.Vijay Kumar
S/o Venkateshwar Rao
S.Venkateshwar Rao
S/o Naganna
D.Saikumar
S/o Krishna
K.Shiva Kumar
S/o Vittal
B.Satyanarayana
S/o Yadagiri
Police Chambashi Reddy
S/o Vitthal Reddy
E.Ayyanna
S/o Venkayya
I.Krishnaiah
S/o Narsaiah
U.Ramulu @ Raju
S/o Sailoo
Syed Ashraf Pasha
S/o Mahboob Ali Khan
M.Sahadev
S/o Narayana
Ch. Narsimha
S/o Narasappa
Syed Sadiq Hussain
S/o Mahmood Hussain
M.Venkatesh
S/o Timmaiah
Shaikh Abbas Ali
S/o Shaikh Mohd.
Chand Qureshi
S/o Shahbuddin
Shaikh Mastan
S/o Shaikh Saleem
V. Hari Chander
S/o Bheema Naik
M.Ramu
S/o Narsimhlu
K.Moghlayya
S/o B.Kishtaiah

Approx
Age

Date of
Death

22 yrs

08-Jan-2014

23 yrs

10-Jan-2014

33 yrs

20-Jan-2014

66 yrs

30-Jan-2014

57 yrs

16-Feb-2014

19 yrs

19-Feb-2014

24 yrs

23-Mar-2014

35 yrs

16-May-2014

65 yrs

19-May-2014

55 yrs

20-May-2014

31 yrs

30-May-2014

39 yrs

14-Jun-2014

54 yrs

28-Jun-2014

26 yrs

05-Aug-2014

54 yrs

06-Aug-2014

54 yrs

16-Aug-2014

36 yrs

17-Aug-2014

28 yrs

27-Aug-2014

22 yrs

28-Aug-2014

35 yrs

02-Sep-2014

42 yrs

04-Sep-2014

22 yrs

04-Sep-2014

62 yrs

15-Sep-2014

In Rama Murthy vs State of Karnataka(1997) 2 SCC 642 the Honble Supreme Court
observed:
Society has an obligation towards prisoners' health for two reasons. First, the
prisoners do not enjoy the access to medical expertise that free citizens have. Their
incarceration places limitations on such access; no physician of choice, no second
opinions, and few if any specialists. Secondly, because of the conditions of their
incarceration, inmates are exposed to more health hazards than free citizens.
Prisoners therefore, suffer from a double handicap.

11. I respectfully submit that all the deceased-inmates listed above hail from poor
financial strata of society with no resources to fight-back the system and
survive; hence these incidents remained silent from the outside world. The
medical facilities within the prison are far from even the basic requirements of
qualified medical staff, equipment, medicines, diagnostics, etc.
12. I submit that in the circumstances stated above, I have no efficacious alternative
remedy, except to approach this Hon'ble Court under Article 226 of the
Constitution of India.
13. I submit that I have not filed any Public interest litigation, writ petition, suit or
other proceedings for the relief or relieves sought herein.

For the reasons stated above it is prayed that this Hon'ble Court may be pleased to
order for an independent and time bound inquiry to ascertain the real facts behind
the mysterious deaths of the prison inmates and issue a Writ of Mandamus, or any
other appropriate writ, order or direction, declaring the omission/commission of the
Respondents 1 to 4 in not extending the medical facilities to the prison inmates
resulting into their deaths as illegal, arbitrary and violative of Article 21 of the
Constitution and the said authorities shall be made liable for the same.
It is also prayed that this Hon'ble Court may be pleased to order the 1 st Respondent
(State of Telangana) to pay appropriate monetary compensation to all the prison
inmates who lost their precious lives due to the dereliction of duties of the
prison/medical staff and pass such other order or orders as may deem fit and proper
in the circumstances of the case.
For the same reasons stated above it is prayed that this Hon'ble Court may be
pleased to grant interim direction directing the Respondents 1 to 4 to immediately
take care of prison inmates who are suffering due to lack of medical facilities and
avert any further loss of lives due to negligence and dereliction on their part.
Solemnly and sincerely affirm this the 18th day of September, 2014 and signed his
name in my presence.

DEPONENT
BEFORE ME :: ADVOCATE :: HYDERABAD