The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down prison manual rules that promoted caste discrimination in jails by allocating prisoners from oppressed communities to carry out menial jobs, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said that discrimination in prisons will not be tolerated and initiated a suo motu case to monitor the matter.

The order came on a petition filed by journalist Sukanya Shantha, following her investigative reporting series in The Wire on caste-based discrimination and segregation in jails. The plea highlighted that prison manuals in several states promote such discrimination.

The reporting found that the division of labour was being determined on the “‘purity-impurity’ scale, with the higher castes handling only work that is considered ‘pure’ and those lower in the caste grid being left to carry out the ‘impure’ jobs”.

The court said that prisoners from oppressed communities cannot be assigned menial, degrading or inhumane work merely because of their caste identity. It struck down the rules in the prison manuals of some states that allowed such a practice.

“We have held that assigning cleaning and sweeping to marginalised and assigning cooking to higher caste is nothing but a violation of Article 15,” the bench said. “Such indirect uses of phrases which target so-called lower castes cannot be used within our constitutional framework, even if caste is not explicitly mentioned, ‘menial’ etc targets the same.”

Article 15 of the Constitution prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or the place of birth.

“All such provisions [enabling caste discrimination] are held to be unconstitutional,” the bench ordered. “All states are directed to make changes in accordance with the judgement.”

The court ruled that members of Denotified Tribes cannot be viewed as members of habitual crime groups.

Denotified Tribes are communities that were listed as “criminal tribes” under the Criminal Tribes Acts during the British Rule.

The references to habitual offenders in state prison manuals are unconstitutional and must align with the legislation on habitual offenders, the court added.

It also ordered that caste details of prisoners be deleted from prison registers.

The court ordered a suo motu case of discrimination in prisons and ordered the state governments to file compliance reports before the next hearing, scheduled three months later.

The bench cautioned the states that they would be held accountable if caste-based discrimination was found in the prisons.

The court directed that all states and Union territories to revise their prison manuals within three months of the judgement. It also ordered the Centre to amend the 2016 Model Prison Manual and the 2013 Model Prisons and Correctional Services Act to address caste-based discrimination within the same three-month timeframe, Live Law reported.

The Supreme Court noted that caste discrimination can manifest in direct and indirect forms, with stereotypes playing a role in perpetuating it, reported Bar and Bench. The government has a duty to prevent it, the court said.

The court underlined the importance of protecting the prisoners’ dignity and that failing to do so reflected a colonial legacy of dehumanisation. The constitution requires humane treatment of prisoners, taking into account their mental and physical well-being, the court said.

The court criticised a provision in the prison manual of Uttar Pradesh that does not allow menial work for those undergoing simple imprisonment “unless his caste is used to do such jobs”, Bar and Bench reported.

It also said that no prisoner should be required to perform hazardous tasks, such as cleaning sewer tankers.