Allahabad HC Orders State Of UP To Pay Compensation For Custodial Torture [Read Judgment]

The division bench of Justices Ramesh Sinha and Rekha Dikshit of the Allahabad High Court has ordered the Chief Secretary of the State of Uttar Pradesh to pay a compensation of Rs.2 lakh to a student of Class XII who was tortured in police custody despite being completely innocent.

The student of Sri Krishna Inter College Parshurampur, district Chandauli filed a petition in the High Court seeking compensation for his illegal detention and custodial torture.

The petitioner’s father and uncle had a hotel at GT Road in Mughal Sarai. On the night of December 22, some police personnel visited the said hotel and asked for rooms for certain guests of the Circle Officer. As the hotel was fully occupied and no room was available, the uncle of the petitioner told the police personnel that all the rooms were occupied by the customers, hence it was not possible to provide rooms immediately, hearing this the police personnel got angry and started hurling abuses and threatened the petitioner's uncle .

In the evening of December 27, 4 police constables, namely Vinay Dubey, Santosh Tiwari, Anand Bhadur Singh and RK Chauhan came to the premises of the said hotel and forcibly took away the petitioner stating that some interrogation has to be done and he shall be let off after a short time.

When hours went by and the police did not let off the petitioner, his uncle and father went to the police station to enquire why has the petitioner been detained but to no avail.

It was after the petitioner’s brother wrote a letter to the NHRC that the police officials decided to show the petitioner’s arrest on December 28(the next day) and falsely implicated him(petitioner) in a criminal case. Following this the petitioner was produced before the magistrate and upon medical examination it was recorded that there were injury marks on his body.

Although an enquiry was conducted by the Additional District Judge on the orders of a single bench of the HC, it was concluded that the injuries on the petitioner “was as a result of his arrest”.

The bench observed- “From the perusal of the enquiry report submitted by the Enquiry Officer it appears that the learned Additional District Judge, Court No. 1 has been swayed by the police personnel specially respondent no. 4 giving him clean chit regarding the illegal taking away of the petitioner.”

The court concluded its order and said- “We deemed it proper in the interest of justice that petitioner, who is a student of class-XII is entitled for an exemplary compensation. We grant a compensation of Rs.Two lacs to the petitioner which shall be paid by the State as it has also failed in its duty to protect the innocent persons being a victim of police atrocities.”

Read the Judgment here.

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