CUSTODIAL DEATHS IN INDIAN JAILS

  The Author of this blog is Mr. Keshav Sethi, student, Amity Law School, Amity University, Noida 

Every society is controlled by laws and regulation to circulate the order and civilization among the society but what if the enforcers of law are themselves responsible for disrupting balance in the society.  Our country India is a population of billions of people and it is hard to maintain the peace in the society and it is natural that something is bound to go off the track and we call that a human error but when that human error is responsible for taking someone life then there is a serious need to look where it all went wrong. Custodial violence is very common in India and is practiced in almost every state whether we should accept that or not. And the only reason it happens is because the police officer as their tendency to fast tract solving of case at earliest sometimes tends to go over the edge and with the power in their hand they forget that there is a human that is being tortured to an extend which is not humanly in nature.

 In the recent times, custodial violence is emerging at a very rapid rate. It is now time to stop the spread of these practices because we have acts that describe the level of punishment that he/she deserved.

The question arises what actually is custodial violence and how does it impact the very basic fundamentals of our constitution.

Custodial violence is the illegal forced used by a police authority or a jail authority on the convict which turned out to be very brutal and senseless in another words, it is the ill treatment that is given to a convict which leads to an impact on their psychological and physiological health. The system in the custody is more harsh and inhuman than it seems to the rest of the world. There is no way to understand why this system of custodial violence still exists in our society.  It is sad fact that even though we are moving towards modern times but our methods of treating convicts are still ancient.

How custodial violence does damages to the basic fundamental of our Constitution[1]?    

Article 20[2]:  Protection in respect of conviction for offences

1.      No person shall be convicted of any offence except for violation of the law in force at the time of the commission of the act charged as an offence, nor be subjected to a penalty greater than that which might have been inflicted under the law in force at the time of the commission of the offence;

2.      No person shall be prosecuted and punished for the same offence more than once;

3.      No person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.

This article is considered to be judicious, fair-minded and rational in the nature. This is also considered as no human being should be deprived of life and the private freedom except according to the rule and regulation of the law of the time being in force.

Article 21[3]:  Protection of life and personal liberty No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.

Article 32[4]: This is also one of the important as well as the backbone of the Indian constitution, this article have made it somewhat possible for the victims to be head fast and less effective SC even consider a mere letter stating the facts of the offence and violation of the rights of the victims as the write petition this ways the pain and the longer paper work which is tiring and time consuming is reduced and the matter are given grave and more importance in cases where there is violation.

Christen community welfare council vs. state of Maharashtra (1994)[5]

On 26 August, 1994 In this case the person was arrested and died in the police custody and the wife of the deceased was also locked down in the lock up room of the police station and was molested by the police officer and was informed about the death of her husband, after the above incident she was then represented by the christen community welfare council.

The judgment given by the Supreme Court was that all the ten police officer who were involved in the incident was liable for the punishment under IPC U/s. 302, 343, 354 and direct the state government to pay compensation to the wife of the diseased The state government after the above said case directed guidelines which had to be followed:

• It was instructed to the police officers after arresting and before detainee is taken to the magistrate he should be medically examined.
• Detailed of his /her medical information.
• Details of his / her medical report in station  diary of police station and shall be given the same to the magistrate
• At the time of arrest the person should be medically examined should if he is carrying any major and minor injuries which should be recorder in the ‘inspection memos'
• The female arrestee shall not be arrested after the sun rest and before the sun rise and if arrest is necessity, it should be done by the female constable.

 

D.K Basu v. state of west Bengal (1997)[6]

Under this case the chief justice of India had written letter informing about the lock up custodial death and Supreme Court consider the letter as the petition.

• The court observe despite the several rules and regulation and laws aimed at providing safeguard there have been several instances of torture still prevalent in society.
• The court cited the existence of custodial death and regarded it to be one of the worst crimes in civilized society governed by the rule of law.
• The police officer carrying out the arrest and handling the interrogation should make it clear and visible identification his name tags with the designations and the particulars as to who are handling the interrogation.
• The police officer who is carrying the arrest should prepare a memo and which shall be attested by witness of the family or any member of the locality.
• The place of arrest, time and station where arrestee is must be notified to the family, relative.
• The persons arrested must be given the information about his arrest. 
• There must have made an entry in the case diary at the police station regarding the name of the person who has been informed about the arrest.
• The arrestee should be examined while making arrest medically his body parts for any minor or major injury.
• Copies of all the above said and other should be attached and send to the magistrate for his record.
• The arrestee may be permitted to meet his lawyer during the interrogation or throughout the interrogation.

Conculsion

Everything above said indicates that the society is not moving on a healthier growth a person in a prison has his/her fundamental rights which no police or jail authority can take it away. Jail is a place where a person is sent to understand what he did was wrong not only against a person but also the society. If such treatments continue in the near future then there is no stopping of crime and rather controlling the crime we would be encouraging our youth to be exposed to police brutality which itself is a whole different subject. Describing punishments was exactly aimed to avoid these circumstances.

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[1] https://www.india.gov.in/sites/upload_files/npi/files/coi_part_full.pdf

[2] https://indiankanoon.org/doc/655638/

[3] https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1199182/

[4] https://indiankanoon.org/doc/981147/

[5] https://indiankanoon.org/doc/432679/

[6] http://defensewiki.ibj.org/images/b/b6/Basu#:~:text=On%20December%2018%2C%201996%20in,The%20requirements%20read%20as%20follows.