In 1980 Government of India constituted All India Committee on Jail Reforms under the chairmanship of Justice Anand Narain Mulla. The recommendation of this commission, universally known as MULLA COMMISSION constitutes a landmark in the reformatory approach to prison reforms. The commission made thorough study of the problems and produced an exhaustive document.

Dr Mouat, the first IG of Prisons in Bengal (he was a medical doctor), compiled the jail code of Bengal in 1863-64 under the sanctions of the old Prison's Acts. After the scrutiny of two special committees the government in 1864 introduced this. The Calcutta Prisons Conference of 1877 also discussed about the situations of jails in Bengals, Tills first jail code was replaced by a more elaborate jail manual 3 years later. The 1896 edition of this manual lasted for forty years with nominal changes until replaced by the Bengal Jail Code. Later, certain provisions of the Model Prison Manual were incorporated in the West Bengal Jail Manual (erstwhile Bengal jail code) while revising the same in 1967.

The West Bengal Jail Code Revision Committee was set up by the State Government on August 10, 1977. The interim report was published in 197X. This committee considered the problem of over crowding of prisoners in jails, the treatment of under trial prisoners, betterment of conditions in jail, prisoners diet, and other similar issues. Among other things, the final report addressed the issues of parole and temporary release, transfer of prisoners, condemned prisoners, prison Panchayat, criminal and non criminal lunatics, probational offenders, correctional services, right of prisoners, after care and prepared a syllabus for officers' training college.