e-Prisons app issues irk Gauhati HC; Dispur seeks 4 weeks to update

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Assam government has assured the Gauhati High Court that the issues related to the process of updating the e-Prisons app will be resolved within four weeks.

The standing counsel for the Gauhati HC, during the recent hearing of a suo moto PIL (2/2018), pointed out from the affidavit filed by the Assam government that the e-Prisons app is not functioning in real time and that there is a gap of about 24 to 48 hours in collating the biometric data of the prisoners.

The Assam government's counsel, in reply to the court's assertion, said that the process of updating the e-Prisons App is underway and the issues are likely to be ironed out within the next four weeks.

The e-Prisons project is a cloud-based application that computerizes and integrates all prison and prisoner management activities. The project's goal is to provide real-time information about inmates to prison officials and other entities involved in the criminal justice system. The project is being implemented in all states.

All e-Prisons data has been integrated with the police and court systems under the Inter-operable Criminal Justice System, which is a common platform for information exchange and analytics of all the pillars of the criminal justice system, comprising police, forensics, prosecution, courts, and prisons.

It is necessary to mention here that the process of creating a comprehensive database based on the fingerprints and biometrics of every accused coming into contact with the criminal justice system is being undertaken through the Centre's project, i.e., the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS).

In Assam, the State Finger Print Bureau (SFPB) of the CID is the state nodal agency for the project conceptualized and initiated by the Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, in the year 2019.

In an earlier hearing of the PIL, the state government informed the HC that 51 NAFIS workstations are functional at Guwahati and 34 in other districts. Around 50,017 fingerprints of arrested or convicted persons from Assam have been digitized and uploaded to the Central Server.

The GHC had, however, noted that the earlier affidavit submitted by the state government was silent regarding the observation made by the court that the biometrics so collected should be assimilated in the 'e-Prisons' app or software as well.

The state government has now stated that the updating of the app will be completed within a period of four weeks.

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