Bombay HC orders costs recovered in two cases be spent on Taloja prison library, which does not stock Wodehouse

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The Bombay High Court on Thursday said that following the hullabaloo over an Elgar Parishad case accused being denied a P G Wodehouse book, it has ordered that costs recovered in two civil matters be spent for improving the library at the Taloja prison.

A bench of Justices S B Shukre and G A Sanap told government lawyer Sangeeta Shinde, who was present in the court for an unrelated case, that it imposed costs of Rs 5,000 and 10,000 in two civil matters earlier in the day, and this money will be spent on buying books for the Taloja prison library.

"We have said in our orders in these two matters that the cost paid by the parties will go to Taloja jail," the bench said.

Shinde said she will convey the court's sentiments to the Maharashtra state prison authorities.

Earlier this week, the bench had heard a plea by Navlakha seeking that he be placed under house custody instead of judicial custody.

During the course of hearing on Monday, his counsel Yug Chaudhry said Navlakha's family had sent him a book by English author and humorist P G Wodehouse, but the jail authorities refused to hand it over to him saying it was a security threat.

On Tuesday, Shinde told the court that at that time, owing to Covid-19 security protocol, no parcels from outside were permitted in the prison.

Other books including "Arabian Nights, Ruskin Bond, a book titled Ishwar Ka Chehra, and another called Johannesburg Dreams" were provided to him, the government lawyer had said.

Justice Shukre, however, had asked if any books by Wodehouse were provided to Navlakha, and if the prison library had any books by Wodehouse in the first place.

When Shinde said it didn't, the bench asked if "humour had been banished from the prison" and directed her to furnish a list of books available in the Taloja prison library.

"If good books are not available in sufficient numbers in jails then something can be done by the bar and even the court....access to a good library is very important for inmates' reformation," the HC had said.

Shinde subsequently told the HC that the prison library has 2,815 books, including spiritual books and also some in Urdu.

The court had then commented that even the library at a secondary school was likely to have more books.

"Not all inmates read books," was the government lawyer's response.

A court imposes 'costs', which are akin to fines, in cases where a party to a case misleads the court or wastes the court's time by filing frivolous cases or applications or does not comply with directions.

Several accused in the 2018 Elgar Parishad-Maoists links case are lodged at Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai.

It has a capacity to accommodate 2,124 inmates, but by the Maharashtra government's own admission, it is overcrowded.

On Thursday, Shinde told the court she could not tell offhand the exact number of inmates at Taloja prison but she had earlier submitted the exact figure before the HC.

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