- (1.) Both these matters are connected and raise the same questions, and they may be disposed of together.
(2.) Ranbir Singh Sehgal the petitioner in the writ petition, is now a prisoner in the Central Jail, Ambala, in the State of Punjab. He was prosecuted for committing offences in different places. On June 13, 1960, he was convicted by the Additional District Magistrate, Ambala, under S. 5 of the Indian Explosive Substances Act and sentenced to 5 years rigorous imprisonment and to pay a fine of Rs. 2,000. The petitioner has preferred an appeal against the said conviction and sentence, and the said appeal is now pending in the High Court Punjab. On January 30, 1961, the Additional Sessions Judge (II) Ambala, convicted the petitioner under Ss. 120-B and 399 of the Indian Penal Code sentenced him to 7 years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 2,000 under the former section, and to 5 years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 2,000 under the latter section. The petitioner preferred an appeal against this conviction and sentence to the High Court of Punjab and the same is now pending there. The other cases are not disposed of and they are still pending in various courts. The petitioner was arrested by the Ambala police on September 14, 1958, and was detained in police custody for a period of about 8 months; and on May 7, 1959, he was transferred to judicial custody at Ambala. On June 13, 1960, he was convicted under the Indian Arms Act, and from that date he is in the Central Jail, Ambala, as a convicted prisoner. On December 15, 1960, the Governor of Punjab ordered that the petitioner should be treated as a 'B' class prisoner. On February 9, 1961, he filed a petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution in the High Court of Punjab at Chandigarh, questioning inter alia is confinement in that prison on the ground that para. 575 of the Punjab Jail Manual whereunder he was confined to a separate cell in the prison, offended Art. 14 of the Constitution, and that in fact discriminatory treatment was meted out to him not for the maintenance of discipline but for extraneous reasons. That petition was dismissed by the said High Court on March 17, 1961; and Criminal Appeal No. 120 of 1961 was filed against the said order by special leave granted by this Court. That apart he also filed the present writ petition (Writ Petition No. 147 of 1961) in this Court under Art. 32 of the Constitution covering the same ground.
(3.) The prisoner argued his own case. He raised before us two points, namely, (1) para. 575 of the Punjab Jail Manual offends Art. 14 of the Constitution in as much as it confers arbitrary power on the Superintendent of Jail to deal with a prisoner under the colour of the said provision in a brutal way circumventing other stringent provisions of the Prisons Act and other paragraphs of the Punjab Jail Manual conceived in the interest and fair treatment of prisoners, (2) the Superintendent of Jail, for extraneous reasons, on the pretext of disciplinary action, gave him solitary confinement in a cell since the date he was transferred to that jail, and thus acted with mala fides;. that apart, he discriminated him in the matter of treatment from other prisoners and even from the co-accused, who, were convicted along with him, and thus offended Art. 14 of the Constitution.;