The Supreme Court on Thursday castigated the Madhya Pradesh government for not taking action against policemen involved in the alleged custodial death of a 24-year-old man, and transferred the probe to the CBI.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta asked the jurisdictional Superintendent of Police, CBI, to immediately direct registration of a case and ensure a fair, transparent and expeditious investigation into the custodial death of Deva Pardhi.
“The police officials found responsible for the custodial death shall be arrested forthwith and not later than a period of one month from today. The investigation shall be concluded within a period of 90 days from the date of the arrest of the accused,” the bench said.
The top court was hearing a plea filed by the mother and aunt of Deva, challenging an order of the Madhya Pradesh High Court that refused to transfer the probe to some other investigating agency and direct the release of the sole eyewitness to the “custodial torture”, Gangaram Pardhi, on bail.
According to the plea, Deva was arrested in a theft case along with his uncle Gangaram, who remains in judicial custody. The plea alleged that Deva was brutally tortured and killed by the police, who claimed he died of a heart attack.
Representing the state of Madhya Pradesh, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati submitted that two police officers involved in the matter have been shifted to the police lines.
The top court said that while an FIR has been registered, not one police officer responsible for the death of the young man in custody has been arrested till date.
“It is also not disputed that Gangaram Pardhi, the sole witness to the custodial death of Deva Pardhi, expressed serious threat perception at the hands of police and prison officials. We are, therefore, convinced that this is a classic case warranting the invocation of the Latin maxim “nemo judex in causa sua”, which means “no one should be a judge in his own cause”.
“The allegation of causing custodial death of Deva Pardhi is against the local police officers of Myana police station,” the bench said. It said that even the doctors who conducted the autopsy seemed to have been pressurised/influenced.
“We are constrained to observe that despite taking note of the large number of the injuries on the body of Deva Pardhi, the victim of custodial torture, the members of the medical board, which conducted post-mortem on his body, failed to express any opinion regarding the cause of death. This omission seems to be deliberate and appears to be a direct result of the influence being exercised by local police officers,” said the apex court.
“The involvement of police officers in the custodial death of Deva Pardhi is clearly borne out from the statement of the sole eyewitness, Gangaram Pardhi, and stands further corroborated during the magisterial inquiry,” it said.
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