The Kerala High Court has asked the state government to take a final call within three months on whether to grant permission for the publication of a manuscript written in jail by Roopesh, who is serving sentences in multiple Maoist-related cases under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Justice V G Arun passed the direction while disposing of a petition filed by Roopesh, who wrote a Malayalam book titled Bandhitharude Ormakurippukal (Memoirs of the Incarcerated) during his years in custody. He had submitted the manuscript to the prison authorities, seeking approval to publish it, but the decision remained pending for an “inordinately long” time, prompting him to approach the court.
Appearing for Roopesh, advocate Kaleeswaram Raj argued that the Kerala Prisons and Correctional Services (Management) Act does not prohibit prisoners from writing or publishing literary work. He alleged that the state was discriminating against Roopesh, as several inmates had earlier been granted permission to release their writings.
The government pleader told the court that the state was not opposed to the publication in principle but was duty-bound to examine the content in view of Roopesh’s convictions under the UAPA. Authorities needed to verify whether the manuscript contained any material that may violate the Act or included defamatory, derogatory or sensitive passages requiring redaction. The state said a detailed scrutiny would require at least three months.
In a series of observations on prisoners’ rights and creative freedom, the court stressed that incarceration does not reduce a person to a “non-person” whose liberties depend on the “whims of the prison administration”.
It noted that while ideas and thoughts remain intangible, once written down they become “examinable”. Stricter scrutiny for prisoners convicted of serious offences is permissible, the judge said, but it cannot become “an insurmountable obstacle”.
The court made it clear that the publication of a prisoner’s literary work cannot be denied unless the content is harmful or unlawful.
Disposing of the writ petition, the High Court ordered the state to take a decision on the request within three months. It also instructed the authorities to consider the Supreme Court’s findings in the Parabhkar Pandurang Sanzgiri case while evaluating the manuscript.
“The writ petition is accordingly disposed of by directing the state government to take a decision on the petitioner’s application for permission to publish his book ‘Bandhitharude Ormakurippukal’ within three months,” the order said.
