Recently, the Kerala High Court has asked the state government to decide on an application by a UAPA convict seeking permission to publish a book authored while in prison. The court highlighted the balance between a prisoner’s fundamental rights and security considerations, underscoring that the right to express thoughts through literary works cannot be arbitrarily denied.
The convict, currently serving a sentence at the Central Prison and Correctional Home, Viyyur, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 and sections of the Indian Penal Code,1860, filed a writ petition regarding the delay in considering the application to publish a Malayalam book titled Bandhitharude Ormakurippukal (Memoirs of the Incarcerated). The application, submitted through the prison superintendent and forwarded to the Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services with a recommendation, had not been acted upon.
The convict’s advocate argued that neither the Kerala Prisons and Correctional Services (Management) Act, 2010, nor the Rules of 2014 prohibit prisoners from publishing literary works. It was contended that Section 36 of the Act preserves prisoners’ rights to live with dignity and enjoy constitutional freedoms, and that freedom of expression encompasses the right to write and publish. Denial without valid reasons, it was claimed, amounted to discrimination, citing other prisoners who had been allowed to publish.
The government’s representative countered that permission was not being denied but required careful examination due to the convict’s UAPA conviction. The state argued that a thorough review was essential to ensure the book did not promote unlawful activities, support banned organisations, or contain content prejudicial to national interest.
The High Court observed that prisoners’ fundamental rights are not extinguished by conviction and can only be restricted to the extent necessary due to imprisonment. Justice VG Arun emphasised that “by reason of the conviction, a person is not reduced to a non-person and his rights made subject to the whims of the prison administration.” While acknowledging that stricter scrutiny may be applied for prisoners convicted under stringent laws like the UAPA, the court stressed that such review should not become an unreasonable barrier to exercising rights. The judgment referred to the Supreme Court decision in State of Maharashtra v. Prabhakar Pandurang Sanzgiri, affirming that detainees have the right to publish unless the content threatens national interest. The Court also noted that Kerala prison rules promote reading and writing as part of rehabilitation, with Rule 254 of prohibit prisoner explicitly allowing inmates to write during prescribed hours.
Dismissing the petition, the Court directed the state government to take a decision on the application within three months of receiving a certified copy of the judgment and to communicate it to the convict. The authorities were instructed to consider both the Supreme Court’s observations in Sanzgiri and the findings recorded in this case while deciding the matter.
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