Mumbai: Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail, one of India’s most-recognised prisons has a capacity to house 804 inmates, but like the rest of the city, it is overcrowded and holds 3,000 prisoners. In 2018, when the Indian government had wanted to extradite Vijay Mallya to India, his defence team had cited the poor condition of Indian jails to say how he should not be extradited back. Arthur Road prison, his lawyer argued, was not fit for her client.
Stung by the international embarrassment, the government souped up Barrack Number 12, and offered proof that Indian jails were indeed good enough. At Arthur Road jail, which was built in 1925 as a stone and concrete structure over six acres in Byculla, Barrack No.12 offered the greatest luxury that one can find in Mumbai: space.
Housed in a ground-plus-one old building, it is separated from the rest of the jail by a high wall. Its past inmates include 26/11 convict Ajmal Kasab, Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, Star TV CEO Peter Mukerjea as well as Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam accused Vipul Ambani and the Wadhawan brothers, Kapil and Dheeraj, of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited.
But Barrack No. 12 is back in the news for a different kind of prisoner. As Maharashtra’s political battle gets uglier, a number of opposition leaders have been jailed for various charges of fraud and corruption. The Nationalist Congress Party’s Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik and most recently, Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut are all housed in Barrack No. 12. Earlier this week, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJ) leader and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis confidante Mohit Kamboj tweeted that another NCP leader would soon be joining Deshmukh and Malik in jail. The joke in Mumbai’s political circles is that soon there could well be a shadow cabinet at Arthur Road.
Once powerful ministers with a retinue of assistants, these leaders now look out for another. When Deshmukh fell and dislocated his shoulder in April, it was his party colleague Nawab Malik who came to his immediate aide. The jail authorities only came to know of the incident later and rushed Deshmukh to the state-run JJ Hospital for treatment. Malik, too, is now at a hospital for renal complications. Parliamentarian Sanjay Raut — quaidi number 8959 — spends his days in the jail library, reading newspapers and tracking news on the big LED TV that makes Barrack No. 12 special.
This is a far cry from the solitary cage that Ajmal Kasab occupied in the high-security barrack. A walkway, leading to an adjoining building where a special court heard his case, was fortified with steel. However, Barrack No. 12 got a serious upgrade in 2018 after Mallya’s lawyers argued that given the state of Indian prisons, lodging him in one would “violate his human rights”. Mallya is wanted in India on charges of fraud and money-laundering to the tune of ₹9,000 crore, and continues to remain in England.
The matter was raked up again in 2020, when fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi’s lawyers opposed India’s request for extradition before a UK court citing overcrowding and a lack of basic facilities that gained import during the pandemic. Modi, wanted in the ₹13,850-crore PNB scam, claimed that the jails in India were “inhumane” and “old-fashioned sweatboxes”. The lawyers went on to say that the Arthur Road building was made of stone, shielded in a steel structure and was a veritable oven.
Stung by the embarrassment, the government’s response was that Barrack No. 12 was kitted up to lodge high-profile prisoners and dismissed both Mallya’s and Modi’s claims as ploys to evade extradition. The barrack was isolated, had natural light and ventilation, a western-style attached toilet and even a 40-inch LED television. Inmates were given a mattress, pillow and bedsheets and were served food on melamine crockery. Prisoners lodged here had access to the jail library as well as newspapers.
“The jail houses over 3,000 prisoners while its official capacity is just 804. It has 540 hardened inmates, who are arrested under the stringent enactments like Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), more than 400 accused arrested in serious offences like murder, 80 facing terror charges and 140 foreign nationals arrested in various cases especially drug related cases,” a jail official said, requesting anonymity.
But life inside the 15-feet by 20-feet Barrack No. 12 is a little different.
“Usually, an inmate gets tea at 7 am, breakfast soon after that, lunch at 11 am, tea again around 4 pm and dinner around 8 pm,” said advocate Inderpal Singh, who represents Deshmukh who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in November 2021. “They (under-trial prisoners) have a monthly allowance of ₹4,500 that they can spend on food items like biscuits and snacks, soaps and shampoos from the jail canteen. Deshmukh has been allowed a bed due to his severe lower back-ache as he would not be able to sleep on the floor.”
“The cell has three fans, six tube lights, five ventilators and three windows for fresh air and natural light,” the prisons official quoted above said. It also has a 38.5-metre square area for exercise and a 17.5m buffer zone around it. As jails go, Barrack 12 gets a five-star rating.