'Institutional Failures': Allahabad High Court Rebukes NHRC & UP Police, Admits Own Inertia In 2009 Custodial Death Case

In its 16-page order, the Court severely criticised the NHRC for closing the 2009 case by treating the police's version as gospel without conducting any independent probe.

"(NHRC) did nothing by way of an independent investigation at its end. It is unfortunate that the manner in which the worthy NHRC has investigated this case is most disappointing…If this is all that the NHRC was required to do and close the case of custodial death purely on the version given by the police which is an interested party, without seeking independent evidence from neutral witnesses within the family of the deceased, calls into question the very existence of the NHRC", a bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Siddharth Nandan observed.

The Court, however, reserved its final findings on the conduct of the NHRC after hearing its counsel.

Briefly put, the bench was dealing with a PIL plea filed by NGO-Association For Advocacy And Legal Initiatives Lko (AALI) concerning the 2009 death of one Nahar Singh, a man with a 40% physical disability, inside the Dannahar police station lockup (Mainpuri District).

While police claimed that he hanged himself (in the urinal part of the lockup) using his leather belt, the Court noted the postmortem revealed a "knot mark" rather than a belt buckle impression, alongside fractured tracheal rings, which, the bench underscored, are more probable in a case of strangulation rather than hanging.

This, the bench noted, raised a reasonable suspicion that the deceased was first strangulated within the police station and then, to escape charges of custodial death or murder, his body was strung up by police personnel.

However, the bench was specifically anguished over the fact that the videography and the photographs of the scene of occurrence and the postmortem were not being made available to the Court for the past 16 years, so that it could proceed further.

Apart from the NHRC, the bench also took exception to the High Court and the State Police's complete failure to unearth the truth in this matter.

Regarding its own role, the bench said that the Court ought to have concluded the case within 3 months, with sustained pressure on the State to produce the videography.

"Disturbingly, the first institution that failed in this endeavour of unearthing the truth is this Court. The subject matter of the PIL was such that it warranted urgency and repeated listings with short dates to protect evidence and ensure their production before this Court for it to satisfy itself, that the contention of the State that the Nahar Singh committed suicide in the urinal of the lock up was true, and that there was no parallel hypothesis to that story", the bench observed.

It added that the procedural delay of 16 years in this case had given an opportunity to the police and the State to "cover its tracks" in a manner that the truth remains 'obscured'.

"The attempts by this Court to now lay its hands on the videographic evidence gets obfuscated on account of this delay," the bench added.

Regarding the police's role in the matter, the bench observed that its unwillingness to produce the videography before the HC was "perhaps to conceal a crime".

The bench noted that, during repeated interactions with the State, the Police/State was unable to convince the Court that the said video recordings had ever left the possession of the police, despite the police's claims that the evidence had been sent to the NHRC.

Consequently, as repeated attempts to secure the missing video evidence bore no fruit, the Court directed the CBI to secure the missing video evidence within 60 days.

The CBI has, however, been asked not to register an FIR at this stage and merely produce the video before the Court. The matter is listed next on August 10.

Case title - Association For Advocacy And Legal Initiatives Lko. vs State Of U.P. Thru. Sec. Home Lko. And Others

Click Here To Read/Download Order