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The Bombay High Court has sought the details of E-Mulakat and video conferencing facilities in the jails from the Maharashtra Government.

The Bombay High Court had taken suo moto cognizance of the non-production of under-trial prisoners before various courts and the utilization of funds for installing video conferencing facilities across courts to facilitate the appearance of under-trial prisoners.

The single-judge bench of the high court presided over by Justice Bharathi Dangre was hearing a bail application from Tribhuvansing Raghunath Yadav, represented by Advocate Vinod Kashid.

The applicant claimed that his bail application had been adjourned 23 times by the trial court because he was not produced before the court either physically or virtually.

During the previous hearing, the high court observed that physically producing undertrial prisoners was a cumbersome process. The authorities were advised to use video conferencing for presenting undertrial prisoners instead.

The bench on August 2 took note of a report submitted by the state government highlighting the steps taken for ensuring video conferencing cameras in district courts.

As per the report, as on date 1,406 courts have not been provided with audio/ video interface.

The bench directed the government to submit statistics about the number of accused produced through VC from the prisons at Thane, Arthur Road jail and Byculla womens' jail in Mumbai, Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai, Adharwadi (Kalyan), Yerwada (Pune), Kolhapur and Nashik.