NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has issued notice to the Haryana government on a plea seeking an independent probe and lodging of an FIR against delinquent police officer in a case related to alleged custodial death in Faridabad in 2013.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Prasanna B Varale sought a reply from the state government.
Hearing a plea by Anand Rai Kaushik, the court issued notice returnable on July 24.
The petitioner challenged the Punjab and Haryana High Court's judgement of November 28, 2023 dismissing his writ petition related to killing of his 32-year-old brother Satender Kaushik.
The petitioner claimed that his brother, Satender died in the custody of the NIT police station in Faridabad on July 25, 2013.
The petitioner has contended that without any FIR, his brother was taken into custody by police on the complaint of a hotel manager over alleged non-payment of bill. The police have claimed that the victim died after hanging himself from a window of a toilet in the police station.
He contended that the high court erred on facts as well as law in dismissing the petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal procedure for directing investigation in the matter when admittedly it was a custodial death.
It said the high court ought to have seen that the death had taken place in police custody and a proper investigation was not conducted.
The plea stated the postmortem was conducted in the presence of the police officials. It is clear from a copy of the postmortem report that it has been manipulated by the police officials. It was alleged by them that the deceased has committed suicide in the toilet of the conference room. It was clearly a case of murder converted into a case of suicide.
The matter was referred to a Judicial Magistrate First Class for enquiry into the matter. On the very same day the JMIC gave her cryptic report saying that there is no foul play, on the basis of the postmortem report which was actually inconclusive. Even the material with which the deceased was supposed to have hung himself was not given to the Board of Doctors. In these circumstances, the petitioner was constrained to file the present petition u/s 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code praying for investigation by an independent agency of the custodial death of the brother of the petitioner, the plea said.
