Aapka Consultant Judgment Series- In this series, we are providing case analysis of Landmark Judgments of Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.
Raghbir Singh vs. State of Haryana
AIR 1980 SC 1087, 1980 CriLJ 801, (1980) 3 SCC 70, (1980) SCC(Cri) 526, [1980] 3 SCR 277,
Hon’ble Judges/Coram: V.R. Krishna Iyer and E.S. Venkataramiah, JJ.
Date of Decision: 31.03.1980
FACTS: –
A bunch of ‘suspects’ was being brought up to the police post which was in charge of the petitioner. A case of theft in some officer’s house had been reported to the police the previous night and so as part of the investigation the suspects were picked up and suffered as part of the process of investigation, severe flagellation. Chhabila, one of those so tortured, succumbed to his injuries. This triggered off investigation into the murderous conduct of the investigator, the petitioner, and another. Medical examination revealed the cruel cause of death as asphyxiation. One of the injuries which, according to the doctor, made the deceased unconscious was torture on both the soles of the foot of the victim. A trial for murder followed, a conviction Under Section 302 was entered and eventually the High Court confirmed the conviction and sentence of life imprisonment so far as the petitioner was concerned.
Accused tried to give a false explanation of suicidal hanging but this was rejected and eventually on a study of the circumstances and the incontrovertible facts of flagellation and asphyxiation within police premises and the testimony of eyewitnesses about nocturnal detention within the police station and beating up of the victim, the courts below concurrently found the guilt of the petitioner proved beyond reasonable doubt. Therefore, Accused appealed to this court.
ISSUE: –
Whether Police officer’s conviction for the murder of a person in the Police Custody is correct in the eyes of law?
JUDGMENT: –
Diabolical recurrence of police torture resulting in a terrible scarce in the minds of common citizens that their lives and liberty are under a new peril when the guardians of the law gore human rights to death. The vulnerability of human rights assumes a traumatic, torture some poignancy when violent violation is perpetrated by the police arm of the State whose function is to protect the citizen and not to commit gruesome offences against them as has happened in this case. Police lock-up if reports in newspapers have a streak of credence, are becoming more and more awful cells. This development is disastrous to our human rights awareness and humanist constitutional order.
The State, at the highest administrative and political levels, should organize special strategies to prevent and punish brutality by police methodology. Otherwise, the credibility of the rule of law in our Republic vis-a-vis the people of the country will deteriorate.
HELD: –
Police Officer is liable for the murder of the person in the police custody
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