The Supreme Court has stayed further proceedings before the Allahabad High Court in a long-pending public interest litigation (PIL) relating to the alleged custodial death of a physically disabled man in Mainpuri in 2009, agreeing to examine a high court order that directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to recover missing video evidence while making sweeping observations against multiple institutions, including the high court itself and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
A bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta issued notice on appeals filed by the Uttar Pradesh government and Ajay Kumar Mishra, the then senior superintendent of police (SSP), Mainpuri, who is presently posted as inspector general of police, Prayagraj Range. The court ordered that “further proceedings in the related public interest litigation shall remain stayed” pending its consideration of the matter.
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Appearing for the state during a hearing earlier this week, senior advocate and senior additional advocate general Sharan Dev Singh Thakur submitted that the high court, while directing a CBI intervention, had passed severe remarks not only against the state police but also against the Allahabad High Court and NHRC, warranting scrutiny by the apex court. He urged the bench to examine both the factual matrix and the legality of the May 18 order.
Accepting the submission, the top court agreed to hear the matter in detail and suspended proceedings before the high court.
The litigation arises out of a PIL filed in 2010 by the Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives (AALI), an organisation working for the rights of women and marginalised communities, seeking an independent probe into the death of a 40% physically disabled man who died inside the lock-up of Dannahar police station in Mainpuri on May 9, 2009.
According to the official version, Singh died by suicide after hanging himself with his belt inside the urinal portion of the lock-up. However, in its May 18 order, a division bench of justices Atul Sreedharan and Siddharth Nandan expressed serious doubts over the police version, observing that it was “almost an impossibility” for a person with a 40% physical disability to hang himself unnoticed inside a police lock-up, which remained under constant surveillance.
Calling the case “a reflection of institutional failures”, the high court observed that despite the PIL remaining pending for nearly 16 years, the videography and photographs of the scene of occurrence and the post-mortem had still not been produced before it. It remarked that the prolonged delay had potentially enabled crucial evidence to disappear.
The high court criticised three institutions in particular.
It first faulted itself, observing that a custodial death case should have been concluded within three months with sustained monitoring to preserve evidence instead of remaining pending for over 16 years.
Secondly, it held that the state police had failed to satisfactorily explain the disappearance of the videographic evidence despite repeated judicial directions, observing that the police appeared to be “passing the buck” to the NHRC and that its unwillingness to produce the recordings “perhaps” indicated an attempt to conceal a crime.
The bench also questioned the official version of suicide after noting that the post-mortem referred to a knot mark behind the ear and fractures of the tracheal rings — features which, according to the court, appeared more consistent with strangulation than hanging using a leather belt. It observed that the missing videography alone could conclusively establish whether the body had been found in a manner consistent with suicide or otherwise.
The third institution criticised by the high court was the NHRC, which had closed the complaint in 2011 after accepting the police version. The bench observed that the commission appeared to have conducted no independent investigation, recorded no statements of material witnesses and simply accepted the police reports “as gospel truth”, questioning the very purpose of the institution if custodial death complaints were to be disposed of in such a manner.
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Finding the state’s explanation unsatisfactory, the high court directed the CBI’s anti-corruption branch at Ghaziabad to recover the missing video recordings within 60 days without registering an FIR at that stage and place them before the court.
