The NHRC’s Impact on Prison Visitorial Systems in India

India has over 1,332 prisons housing more than 5.3 lakh inmates – yet most of these facilities remain largely invisible to public scrutiny. The traditional visitorial systems established by state prison manuals and the Prisons Act of 1894 have long governed who can enter a prison, inspect its conditions, and recommend changes. But these mechanisms are often weak, inconsistently applied, or simply non-functional. That’s where the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) steps in – not as a prison authority, but as an independent constitutional watchdog that holds states accountable for the dignity of every person behind bars.

What is the visitorial system in prisons? 🔗

The visitorial system refers to the structured process by which designated individuals or bodies are authorised to visit prisons, examine conditions, and make recommendations. Traditionally, this role has been assigned to district and sessions judges, magistrates, and official “Boards of Visitors” constituted under state prison manuals. In practice, however, these Boards of Visitors became largely non-functional, with many sessions judges not regularly conducting the jail visits mandated by law. The NHRC itself highlighted this lapse and called for the reconstitution of Boards of Visitors in all jails across the country.

Into this vacuum, the NHRC emerged as a far more active and consequential visitor – one that operates with statutory backing, national reach, and the authority to issue binding recommendations.

The NHRC’s statutory authority to visit prisons 🔗

The NHRC is not visiting prisons as a matter of goodwill. It is a statutory obligation. Section 12(c) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, expressly empowers the Commission to visit, under intimation to the state government, any jail or institution under state control where persons are detained or lodged for treatment, reformation, or protection – to study the living conditions of inmates and make recommendations. This provision is distinct from the state-controlled visitorial mechanisms because it vests this power in a central independent body, not in prison officials or local judiciary alone.

The NHRC was established on October 12, 1993, and from its very inception, it focused on the promotion and protection of human rights of prisoners. Its role, as noted by former Chairperson Justice J.S. Verma, is complementary to the judiciary – not a court, but a body whose recommendations carry moral and legal weight.

What the NHRC actually does during prison inspections 🔗

When NHRC officers visit a prison, they don’t just walk through and file a report. Their inspections examine a range of conditions systematically. The Commission has visited prisons across states and also handled a large number of complaints from prisoners alleging human rights violations. Based on these inspections, the Commission concluded that there is a pressing need to revamp prison administration and bring about systemic reforms.

Healthcare and mental health 🔗

One of the NHRC’s most pointed findings concerns healthcare. The Commission noted that even after more than a century since the Prisons Act, many prisons still did not have a regular medical officer posted on site, with visits from district hospital doctors being occasional and brief. For mental health specifically, the NHRC issued clear guidelines: mentally ill prisoners should not be kept in regular prisons and must be shifted to appropriate facilities. The Commission went a step further – it declared that if mentally ill persons are found during jail inspections, it would award compensation to them or their families, recoverable from the erring jail officials.

On psychiatric care, the NHRC recommended that psychiatrists be posted in jail hospitals or, where staffing is not possible, periodic visits be arranged at least once a week. It also called for integrating mental health care with the general health system through district mental health programmes – a systemic fix, not just a patch.

Overcrowding and undertrial prisoners 🔗

Overcrowding is the defining crisis of India’s prisons. According to NCRB Prison Statistics India 2023, India’s prisons operate at an overall occupancy rate of 120.8%, with Delhi’s prisons reaching a staggering 200% occupancy. Undertrial prisoners – people who have not yet been convicted – make up 73.5% of the total prison population, meaning that three out of four inmates are technically still presumed innocent.

The NHRC has consistently flagged this as a human rights emergency. It wrote to the Chief Justices of all High Courts urging speedy trials and the release of undertrials, and asked District and Sessions Judges to resume regular jail visits as mandated by state prison manuals. The Commission also recommended rationalising the sentencing policy and reforming the Criminal Procedure Code to reduce undertrial overcrowding – a structural intervention, not just a logistical one.

Sanitation, infrastructure, and basic dignity 🔗

The NHRC’s prison visits have repeatedly uncovered failures in basic living conditions. The Commission has recommended that prison infrastructure be upgraded to conform to the principle of prisoner dignity as an individual, that jails be modernised in a time-bound and phased manner, and that there be a scientific classification of prisoners enforced rigorously across all prisons. This last point matters because first-time offenders currently share spaces with hardened criminals – a situation that the NHRC, along with the Justice Mulla Committee, identified as deeply damaging.

The NHRC’s role beyond inspection: seminars, guidelines, and advisories 🔗

The NHRC’s contribution to the visitorial framework extends well beyond physical inspections. It has organised national seminars on prison reform – including a two-day seminar in November 2014 that assessed implementation of its 2011 recommendations and discussed further steps for improving prison conditions. These seminars bring together Inspectors General of Prisons, High Court judges, state Home Secretaries, civil society, and NGOs – creating a multi-stakeholder dialogue that no state-level visitorial body can replicate.

The Commission also issued a specific Advisory to the Centre, States, and Union Territories on preventing prisoner suicides, identifying eleven key areas for action including mental health screening at admission, filling staff vacancies, strengthening the visitor system, and prison architecture improvements. In 2023, NCRB data recorded 150 unnatural prison deaths, with suicide being the leading cause. The NHRC’s advisory directly addresses this crisis through specific, actionable measures.

More recently, the Commission organised a National Conference on ‘Human Rights for Prison Inmates’ that produced recommendations on rehabilitation, decongestion, gender-sensitive prison reforms, and de-addiction – with the Chairperson committing to develop an advisory and monitor its implementation.

How the NHRC differs from traditional visitorial bodies 🔗

State-level visitorial mechanisms – Boards of Visitors, sessions judges, executive magistrates – have jurisdiction within their own states and depend heavily on the initiative of local officials. The NHRC, by contrast, operates nationally, independently, and with the weight of a statutory body whose recommendations must be formally responded to by governments. States are required to place NHRC annual reports before their legislatures, with a memorandum explaining action taken or reasons for non-acceptance of recommendations.

The Commission also has investigative capacity: its investigation division is headed by a Director General of Police rank officer and includes teams that examine complaints, scrutinise reports from police and prison authorities, and probe custodial violence. This gives the NHRC’s prison visits a depth that ordinary inspection visits often lack. Additionally, the NHRC’s power to award compensation – and its directive that state governments recover such amounts from erring officials – creates a genuine accountability mechanism that most state visitorial systems do not offer.

Challenges and limitations of the NHRC’s visitorial role 🔗

The NHRC’s powers, substantial as they are, come with built-in constraints. The Commission can make recommendations but cannot enforce them directly. It is not a court, and state governments retain the discretion to accept or reject its suggestions – though they must provide reasons for rejection. Resource constraints and a heavy workload also limit how frequently and thoroughly inspections can be conducted across 1,332 prisons spread across the country.

There is also a broader structural gap: prisons are a state subject under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. This means that while the NHRC can visit, recommend, and pressurise, actual reform depends on state governments choosing to act. The Model Prison and Correctional Services Act, 2023 – which signals a shift from a punitive to a rehabilitative framework – is a step forward, but its implementation remains the responsibility of individual states.

The human rights framework underpinning the NHRC’s prison work 🔗

The NHRC’s approach to prisons is grounded in a fundamental principle: a person in custody remains under the care of the state, and the state bears full responsibility for protecting their basic human rights. This is not a soft ethical position – it is rooted in constitutional guarantees under Articles 21 (right to life and personal liberty) and 14 (right to equality), reinforced by India’s obligations under international instruments like the Convention Against Torture and the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.

As Justice Krishna Iyer aptly observed, the prison gates are not an iron curtain between the prisoner and human rights. The NHRC operationalises this principle by ensuring that the state’s custodial power does not become custodial neglect – and that every visit to a prison is a reminder that rights do not end at the prison gate.

What do you think? If the NHRC’s recommendations on prison reform are non-binding, what additional mechanisms could make state governments more accountable for implementing them? And given that undertrial prisoners make up nearly three-fourths of India’s prison population, should prison visitorial reforms be tied directly to judicial delay reduction as a legal mandate?

References

1. https://nhrc.nic.in/press-release/initiatives-prison-reforms
2. https://nhrc.nic.in/sites/default/files/NHRCbrochure.pdf
3. https://nhrc.nic.in/press-release/nhrc%E2%80%99s-initiatives-prison-reforms
4. https://www.mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/2025-04/NHRCselectedlettersandguidelinesondeathsincustody_09042019_0%5B1%5D_4.pdf
5. https://nhrc.nic.in/press-release/nhrcs-national-seminar-prison-reforms-concludes-several-recommendations
6. https://nhrc.nic.in/press-release/recommendations-nhrc-detention
7. https://theprint.in/india/drop-in-inmates-additions-but-indian-prisons-120-full-delhi-jails-most-overcrowded-at-200-ncrb-data/2754893/
8. https://nhrc.nic.in/press-release/national-seminar-prison-reforms
9. https://nhrc.nic.in/media/press-release/concerned-suicides-prisons-nhrc-issues-advisory-centre-states-and-uts-stop-these
10. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetailm.aspx?PRID=2180600
11. https://vajiramandravi.com/upsc-exam/national-human-rights-commission-nhrc/