New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday provided a split judgment in a 1995 situation of custodial fatality of an individual with one court acquitting charged police officers of the harsher fee of liable murder while one more convicted them for the exact same offense with painful statements.
Justice Sanjay Kumar differed with the sight of Justice C T Ravikumar acquitting the police officers of the fee of liable murder not totaling up to murder and stated, “It is high time that our legal system squarely faces the menace of police excesses and deals with it by putting in place an effective mechanism to obviate such inhuman practices.”
“Irrespective of that step being taken, the fact remains that when sufficient evidence is adduced to prove custodial torture by the police, it is then for the police themselves to prove their innocence, be it in a case of death in police custody or even if such a victim goes missing or vanishes,” Justice Kumar created in his dissenting reasoning.
Merely due to the fact that the charged police officers were smart sufficient to “trump up a story of Shama (deceased) escaping from their custody”, they can not be approved the advantage of pardon, he stated.
“Doing so would impel the court to fall into the trap of the ingenious and wily appellants, who have cunningly concocted and falsified records to escape their just deserts,” he stated.
Quoting a specialist, Justice Kumar stated, “Torture or killing of a person in police custody is, to put it mildly, illegal. But the real question is when gold rusts, what can iron do? Who can police the police? Because of the system of linkages, the accountability of police to the political process is purely notional. So, the question arises whether courts can police the police? It is unfortunate that the State has done little to reform the system to control such abuse of power …”.
“I would disagree with the conclusion drawn by my learned brother that in the absence of evidence regarding the homicidal death of Shama @ Kalya, the appellants are entitled to be acquitted of the charge under Section 304 Part-II IPC read with Section 34 IPC by granting them the benefit of the doubt.
“On the contrary, I would certainly preserve the sentences and sentences of the applicants, as verified by the High Court, and reject all the charms,” Justice Kumar said.
On the other hand, Justice C T Ravikumar acquitted the accused policemen of the charge of homicidal death of the detenue.
“In the lack of proof relating to bloodthirsty fatality of Shama @ Kalya in Gondia City Police Station combined with the support proof, which might stand the examination of prevalence of chances and the various other scenarios beneficial to the charged arising from the various other scenarios and failing of the prosecution to develop the situation presented by it.
“Appellants in …. Accused No. 2 (Ravindra) and Accused No. 4 (Hans Raj) are entitled to be acquitted for commission of offence under Section 304 Part II read with Section 34, IPC, granting the benefit of doubt,” he stated.
There is outright lack of clinical and dental proof to discover that the prosecution had actually been successful in showing that Shama remaining in guardianship suffered any kind of “grievous hurt”, he stated.
According to the prosecution, Shama pen names Kalya, a supposed history-sheeter, was taken right into authorities guardianship for examination about a case of house-breaking at Vijay Agrawal’s house at Gondia in Maharashtra.
He was charged of taking products worth greater than Rs 1 lakh on December 07, 1995 and went through custodial torment, which caused his fatality on December 22.
The authorities did not videotape his apprehension while maintaining him captive.
Later, an unknown body, which was burned and hidden, was discovered in a woodland under the territory of Tirodi police headquarters in Balaghat area of Madhya Pradesh.
It was additionally affirmed that after dedicating the “heinous crime”, the charged police officers cooked up an instance and contrived incorrect proof to leave prosecution for custodial fatality.
They purportedly made use of Dipak Lokhande as Shama later on to assert that the charged left from their guardianship and the police officers purportedly fudged documents to confirm the exact same, according to the prosecution.
The police officers, the prosecution stated, made Lokhande flee from their jeep to make it show up that Shama had actually left from guardianship.
Published 25 September 2024, 17:15 IST
