The EDMC produced photographs in the court to prove that they had taken action to remove garbage and clean up the area. The Delhi High Court has expressed concern over unhygienic surroundings of the newly set up Mandoli Jail, which houses over 3,500 inmates, and said that it is the civic body’s responsibility to keep the area “clean and well maintained”. “Needless to say, it shall be the responsibility of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation to ensure that the entire area around Mandoli Jail is kept clean and well maintained,” a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said, adding that “the unhygienic and inhuman condition of prisoners actually pains us”. The bench had, in March, tasked the EDMC to clean the surroundings of the jail. Friday’s directions were issued after the bench was informed by advocate Sumer Kumar Sethi, appointed as amicus curiae by the court, that prisoners and officials were disturbed because of pollution and smoke from factories and scrap dealers that burn waste just outside jail numbers 13 and 14. He also informed the court that senior jail officers had told him that at times, they noticed a black layer of ash on windows, plants and other parts of the jail, and there is a “cloud of smoke that covers the jail once the burning of waste, etc begins”. The EDMC produced photographs in the court to prove that they had taken action to remove garbage and clean up the area. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), however, pointed to a deplorable state of affairs around the jail complex, which has six prisons and 3,776 inmates. Irked over the EDMC’s stand, the bench pulled up authorities for allowing posters to be pasted on the walls of the jail, and asked for action on the same.