law: Prisoners Act, 1900
  15. Power for officers in charge of prisons to give
  
  effect to sentences or certain Courts
  
  (1) Officers in charge of prisons outside the Presidency-town
  
  may give effect to any sentence or order or warrant for the detention of any
  
  person passed or issued-
  (a) by any Court or tribunal acting, whether
  
  within the States under the general or special authority of the Central
  
  Government, or of the Government of Burma, or by any Court or tribunal, which
  
  was before the commencement of the constitution acting under the general or
  
  special authority of His Majesty, or of the Crown Representative; or
  (b) before the 26th January, 1950, by any
  
  Court or tribunal in any Indian State-
  (i) if the presiding Judge, or if the Court or
  
  tribunal consisted of two or more Judges, at least one of the Judges, was an
  
  officer of the Crown authorized to sit as such Judge by the State or the Ruler
  
  thereof or by the Central Government or the Crown Representative; and
  (ii) if the reception, detention or
  
  imprisonment in any Province of India of person sentenced by any such Court or
  
  tribunal had been authorized by general or special order by the State
  
  Government; or
  (c) by any other Court or tribunal in a Part B
  
  with the previous sanction of the State Government in the case of each such
  
  sentence, order or warrant:
  Provided that
  
  effect shall not be given to any sentence order or warrant for detention passed
  
  or issued by any Court or tribunal in Burma without the previous sanction of
  
  the State Government concerned.
  (2) Where a Court or tribunal of such an Indian State as
  
  aforesaid has passed a sentence which could not have been executed without the
  
  occurrence of an officer of the Crown, and such sentence had been considered on
  
  the merits and confirmed by any such officer specially authorized in that
  
  behalf, such sentence, and nay order or warrant issued in pursuance thereof,
  
  shall be deemed to be sentence, order or warrant of a Court or tribunal acting
  
  under the authority of the Central Government or the Crown Representative.]
  Comment: To give effect to the sentence means that it
  
  is illegal to exceed it and so it follows that a prison official who goes
  
  beyond mere imprisonment or deprivation of locomotion and assaults or otherwise
  
  compels the doing of things not covered by the sentence acts in violation of
  
  Art. 19. Punishments of rigorous imprisonment oblige the inmates to do hard
  
  labor, not harsh labor and so a vindictive officer victimizing a prisoner by
  
  forcing on him particularly harsh and degrading jobs, vocatives the law's
  
  mandate. For example, a prisoner, if forced to carry night soil, may seek a
  
  habeas writ. 'Hard labor' in S.53 has to receive a humane meaning. A girl
  
  student or a male weakling sentenced to rigorous imprisonment may not be forced
  
  to break stones for nine hours a day. The prisoner cannot demand soft jobs but
  
  may reasonably be assigned congenial jobs. Sense and sympathy are not enemies
  
  of penal asylums. Sunil Batra, Petitioner v. Delhi Administration, AIR 1980
  
  SUPREME COURT 1579