Jayaraj- Bennix Custodial Deaths Case : Supreme Court Rejects Bail Pleas Of Cops In Custody

The matter was heard by the division bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari.

Expressing their disinclination to interfere with the Madras High Court order of dismissing their bail application at this stage, the bench in their order said,

"Having heard Learned Senior Counsel(s) for petitioners, Learned ASG KM Nataraj & Senior Counsel Indira Jaising for the complainant and considering the facts & circumstances, at this stage, we are not inclined to interfere with the High Court's order refusing bail."

Representing the Inspector S Sridhar, Senior Advocate S. Nagamuthu submitted that the duo did not die due to the injuries at the police station but due to respiratory illness and heart ailment.

He also pointed out to the fact that neither the Government Doctor nor the Magistrate recorded any injuries when the father and son were presented before them respectively.

Seeking bail for the Inspector, Senior Counsel submitted that there was no allegation against the inspector for tampering of witnesses and that there was no question of either absconding or hampering the investigation.

Appearing for the Sub Inspector P Raghu Ganesh, Senior Advocate Anjana Prakash submitted that Raghu was neither the part of the team that had brought the deceased(s) to the police station nor part of the scuffle and came much later.

 Assailing the order passed by the Madras High Court, Senior Advocate argued that the impugned order did not mention anything about merits of the case.

Opposing the bail, Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, appearing for the CBI, drew the court's attention to relevant paragraphs of the FSL report. Pointing to the inquest report which was prepared by the Judicial Magistrate, ASG submitted that 18 injuries were recorded during the inquest proceedings.

Representing the defacto complainant who lost her husband and son, Senior Advocate Indira Jaising submitted that the chargesheet had records of CDR locations that proved physical appearance of the accused(s) at the time of torture.

"They were in the Police Station. There can be no denial of the fact of their Police Station & the precincts of the Police Station where the torture had occured," Senior Advocate submitted to further substantiate her contention.

She also argued that grant of bail to the accused(s) would result in collapse of the trial and also pose threat to life of two primary eye witnesses who had gathered courage to give statements under sections 161 and 164 of CrPC, 1973 against their senior and are yet to be examined.

Senior counsel also drew the court's attention towards initiation of contempt proceedings by the High Court against three police officers for obstructing the HC-ordered inquiry by Judicial Magistrate.

"I have brought on record the antecedents against these people. They have been accused of custodial violence previously also," Senior Counsel Indira Jaising also submitted.

Terming the current case as "gross", Senior Counsel submitted that the Jail Superintendent in his statement had submitted that he recorded injuries when the father son duo was remanded to judicial custody and that he had previously also received various complaints of custodial violence against the police station whose incharge was the accused inspector.

"The High Court has frowned upon the doctor & Police State of not recording injuries," Senior Counsel argued.

To counter Senior Counsel Jaising's contention highlighting previous antecedents of the accused(s) Senior Advocate S. Nagamuthu relied on Section 53 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 to submit that in criminal proceedings the fact that the accused was of good character was relevant.

The Top Court on May 25, 2021 although issued notice in the petition refused to give an urgent listing for the same during the summer vacation.

Jayaraj and Bennix were taken into custody on June 19 last year on the allegation that they had kept their mobile phone shop open beyond the permissible hours during the lockdown. They were tortured in police custody, leading to their deaths.

The custodial deaths sparked large scale public protests and social media outrage across the country. The Madras High Court took suo moto cognizance of the matter and ordered the Superintendent of Police, Thoothukudi, to inquire into the incident and submit a status report. An order was given to videograph the autopsy, which the court ordered to be done by a panel of three experts in the presence of a magistrate after the police completed its inquest proceedings.

The Tamil Nadu government handed over the investigation to the CBI. The CBI had filed a chargesheet in the case.

Case Title: S Sridhar v. Additional Superintendent Of Police CBI SC II And Anr and P Raghu Ganesh v State Through Its Inspector of Police CBI| SLP (Crl) No 3762/2021