- (1.) A litigation with a social dimension, even in a blinkered adversary system, serves a larger cause than the limited lis before the court. This petition, with non-specific reliefs, is one such.
(2.) Sobraj, the petitioner, by the frequency of his forensic complaints against incarceratory torture and Dr. Ghatate, his counsel, by the piquancy of his hortative advocacy of freedom behind bars, have sought to convert the judicial process from a constitutional sentinel of prison justice - which, emphatically, it is - into a meticulous auditor - general of jail cells - which, pejoratively, it is not - although, on occasions, 'thin partition do their bounds divide'. Often, as here, the fountain of confusion in penitentiary jurisprudence is forgetfulness of fundamentals. Once the legal basics are stated, Sobraj, with the disingenuous, finical grievances, will be out of court.
(3.) What are the governing principles, decisionally set down by this Court in Batra and Sobraj Has the court jurisdiction to decide prisoners' charges of violation of rights If it has, can it meddle with the prison administration and its problems of security and discipline from an 'innocent' distance Put tersely, both the 'hands off' doctrine and the 'take over' theory have been rebuffed as untenable extremes and a middle ground has been found of intervening when constitutional rights or statutory prescriptions are transgressed to the injury of the prisoner and declining where lesser matters of institutional order and man-management, though irksome to some, are alone involved.;