SC allows Soni Sori to be shifted to Jagdalpur jail

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed alleged Naxal sympathiser Soni Sori, arrested for allegedly helping the outlaws in Chhattisgarh, to be shifted from a Raipur jail to one in Jagdalpur.

"The prayer of Sori to be shifted from the Raipur jail to the Jagdalpur Central Jail is allowed," a bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir said.

The order was passed after senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi and counsel Atul Jha, appearing for the state government, said they are not opposed to the plea of the tribal woman, who has been in Raipur Jail since October 2011.

Sori, a tribal school teacher from Dantewada district, had made a plea to shift her to Jagdalpur jail saying it was difficult for her to be in touch with her family members as Raipur was far away from her home town.

She has also alleged that she was being tortured by the Chhattisgarh police and has sought that her case be shifted to Delhi. The apex court said it would hear her petition and other applications for final disposal on February 5.

Earlier, after she had alleged that she was not given proper medical aid in Raipur, she was given treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences on the apex court's direction.

A suspected Maoist conduit, Sori has been accused by the police of receiving 'protection money' from the Essar group. She was arrested on October 4, 2011 in South Delhi by a team of Chhattisgarh police and was taken to Dantewada for interrogation. Essar has denied giving funds to the Maoists.

In October 2011, a special medical team from a Kolkata hospital had submitted a report to the apex court that it has recovered a certain foreign particle from her body, but could not identify the reasons as to how it got embedded in her private part.

The Chhattisgarh government had submitted that the entire allegation was being orchestrated by certain vested interests to malign the state police.