'Encounter Killings, Selective Crackdowns': Allahabad HC Slams UP Police Over Targeted Actions; Flags Misuse Of Gangsters Act

The most glaring instance of police overreach highlighted by the Court in this case was the treatment meted out to Lalita Tyagi, a 35-year-old homemaker.

The bench noted that although no incriminating evidence was stated against her in the charge sheets, she was arrested the very next day after the Gangsters Act FIR was lodged and she was compelled to remain in judicial custody for approximately 80 days.

Terming the arrest as "patently illegal, arbitrary, and wholly unwarranted in law", the bench expanded its scrutiny to the broader culture of institutional impunity in the State. The High Court observed that the vertical loyalty of officers runs not toward the Constitution but toward the ruling dispensation.

It added that the Field officers, acutely conscious of the transfer-posting economy, calibrate their conduct to satisfy political superiors.

It was within this context that Justice Diwakar pointed out that encounter killings, selective crackdowns and targeted use of the Gangsters Act against inconvenient individuals by the State machinery have periodically attracted judicial notice.

Highlighting the stark state of affairs of administrative accountability in UP, the Court referred to the infamous 2020 Bikru massacre, where slain gangster Vikas Dubey and his associates ambushed a police team and brutally killed 8 policemen, including a Deputy SP.

The Court expressed its dismay that the Police Officer, who was suspended after an SIT probe pointed to a nexus between the police and gangster Dubey, was meted out nothing more than a "formal caution" following the conclusion of a departmental enquiry.

"This Court finds it difficult to reconcile such a disproportionately lenient outcome with the gravity of the supervisory failure involved, and it is precisely this culture of institutional impunity that emboldens those in authority to remain unaccountable, perpetuating the feudal and politically patronised administrative ecosystem that this Court has adverted to hereinabove", the Court observed.

On the recurring misuse of police powers, the Court observed that stringent provisions of the Gangsters Act are often used against street-level and petty offenders, while actual gangsters and organized crime syndicates remain largely unaffected.

Furthermore, the bench also highlighted that arrests are effected without due process, many times FIRs are registered or suppressed with ulterior motives, and preventive detention provisions are invoked arbitrarily, at the whims of officers.

"The procedural safeguards under the Code of Criminal Procedure, and now the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, are routinely bypassed. Judicial orders are complied with in form but defeated in substance," the bench observed.

Importantly, Justice Diwakar expressed "deep constitutional concern" about the role of the Home Secretary, the senior-most bureaucratic authority in the state's law enforcement system.

It noted that rather than functioning as an independent constitutional authority charged with implementing the government's vision, policies, and programmes through impartial executive action, certain officers who rose to the post of Home Secretary have, in practice, "served as conduits for self-serving interests".

The bench said that recommendations on postings, approvals of departmental proceedings, and responses to court proceedings have, in such instances, reflected considerations driven by “personal or extrinsic calculations rather than dispassionate and constitutionally informed administrative judgment”.

This fundamentally compromises the institutional integrity that the position demands, the Court further noted.

It is in this precise context that the Court issued a "solemn judicial reminder" that the Home Department must independently evaluate the suitability and operational effectiveness of its officers, a reminder that carries profound constitutional significance.

"…constitutional governance cannot be held hostage to individual expediency or an individual's convenience, and that the State apparatus must remain answerable to the law and to the Constitution, and not to any ruling establishment," the Court added.

Furthermore, on the merits of the case, the bench stated that the accused may have committed offences of cheating and forgery; however, this does not amount to, nor can it be construed as, running an organised gang.

Justice Diwakar observed that there was absolutely no material on record which could establish the use of violence, intimidation, coercion, or any other means with the object of disturbing public order or of gaining any undue temporal or pecuniary advantage.

Hence, the Court concluded that the ingredients to invoke Section 2(b) of the Gangsters Act were not satisfied.

In fact, the bench also found that there was no relevant material before the Commissioner of Police, Ghaziabad, and the Deputy Commissioner of Police before they approved the gang chart.

"On the basis of mere assertions, the provisions of the Gangsters Act cannot be invoked", the Court remarked as it quashed the proceedings.

Before parting, the Court also issued a strict warning to the then Commissioner of Police, Ghaziabad, Ajay Kumar Mishra.

Noting that the patently illegal arrest and the approval of the flawed gang chart occurred under his watch, the Court directed him to remain vigilant and circumspect in the discharge of his official functions, "befitting the responsibilities of a position that demands balanced judgment, institutional restraint, and scrupulous adherence to law".