<span style="color: #222222;">A High-Powered Committee, headed by a Delhi High Court judge, has directed authorities to take steps like releasing inmates on emergency parole for reducing over-crowding in jails to prevent the spread of Corona virus which has infected 1,071 people in India and claimed 29 lives.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The committee, constituted on the orders of the Supreme Court, deliberated on various means of achieving social distancing and resolved to quarantine fresh inmates who are foreign nationals, isolate those with flu or fever symptoms, conduct regular medical examination of the prisoners, release (those eligible) inmates on emergency parole and to grant special remission of sentence to those who have six months or less jail term left to serve.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The decision by the committee, headed by Delhi High Court judge Justice Hima Kohli, was taken in a meeting held via video conferencing with officials of Director General (Prisons), Delhi State Legal Services Authority and Home Department of the Delhi Government.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">In the meeting, it was resolved that the process of granting eight week parole to around 1,500 prisoners, under a newly incorporated provision in the prison rules, would be completed expeditiously. According to the DG Prisons, in the 16 jails in Delhi which have a total capacity of 10,026 prisoners, there are 17,440 inmates of which 14,355 are under-trial prisoners.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">During the meeting, the Prison authority informed that no case of COVID-19 has been detected among the inmates and every nook and corner of the jail campus was being regularly sanitized and cleaned. Besides that, masks and gloves have been supplied to jail staff and the prisoners and cultural and group activities of inmates have been suspended to avoid mass gathering.</span><br />