Allahabad High Court Directs Second Autopsy Of The Body Of Kasganj Custodial Death Victim Altaf

The Allahabad High Court on Thursday directed a second autopsy of the body of the Kasganj Custodial death Victim, Altaf by a team of doctors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi.

The Bench of Justice Anjani Kumar Mishra and Justice Deepak Verma was hearing the plea moved by Chand Miyan (father of the Altaf) seeking a CBI probe and second autopsy in the matter.

Essentially, hearing the plea by Chand Miyan, the Court, at the outset, observed that with regard to the prayer to transfer the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation, no order was required as the Court noted that a Judicial inquiry as also a ministerial inquiry in this matter is pending consideration.

As regards the judicial inquiry, it was stated before the Court that to date, 7 of the 36 witnesses have been examined and that two out of the remaining witnesses are to be examined today.

Under the circumstances, the Court directed the concerned judicial officer to expedite the proceedings and to take them to their logical conclusions as expeditiously as possible. As regards, the ministerial inquiry, the Court directed the Magistrate concerned holding the ministerial inquiry to proceed with it expeditiously and to bring it to its conclusion expeditiously preferably within a period of four weeks.

With regard to the prayer for the exhumation of the body of the deceased that a fresh postmortem be conducted on the body preferably at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, the Court directed that the body of the deceased, Altaf shall be exhumed forthwith in the presence of Senior Superintendent of Police / Superintendent of Police, Kasganj.

Further, it has been directed that the body, after it has been exhumed, shall be sealed and immediately transported to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, where a post-mortem examination of the exhumed body shall be conducted in presence of a team of Doctors to be constituted by the Director of All India Medical Sciences, Delhi.

The Court has also ordered that the entire process of unsealing and postmortem and the subsequent sealing, shall be video graphed and High resolution still photographs of the body at various stages of the examination shall also be taken and preserved.

Lastly, the Court has directed that the entire exercise should be completed within a period of 10 days. With this, the matter has been listed for hearing after four weeks. 

Advocates Mohd. Kumail Haider, Ali Qambar Zaidi, Mohammad Danish appeared for the petitioner.

Case title - Chand Miyan v. State Of Up And 5 Others

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