Delhi High Court upholds conviction of 5 UP cops in 2006 ‘custodial torture’ case

The court noted that the sequence of events and evidence on record suggests that the “deceased was subjected to custodial torture with the knowledge that it was likely to cause death of the deceased but without any intention to…”

The bench noted that there was a “serious discrepancy” between injuries recorded in the inquest report (corroborated by the photographs of the body as also the testimony of various witnesses who had seen it at the mortuary) and the postmortem report.

The prosecution argued that as per the inquest report, the death was caused due to grievous injuries such as “contusion on knee, back, injury mark on the back of right ear, swelling and contusion on elbow and middle of arm, swelling and contusion between left wrist and elbow and contusion mark on the lateral aspect calf of left leg and knee”.

The court, however, said, “What was termed as electrocution/burn mark injuries near the ears by the inquest report, the PM (post mortem) doctor classified such injuries as a ligature mark. The injuries, as per the inquest report and the postmortem report, are consistent (as) regards injuries on the neck, behind the ear, right arm elbow and the wrist and behind the leg of calf and the knee. It is difficult to accept that these injuries present all over the body can be possibly caused by lowering of hanging body from the ventilator and injuries being suffered due to collision with the wall. Such injuries are more consistent with battering and beatings than collision with a wall,” the HC said.

The police officers had appealed against a March 14, 2019 judgement of the Additional Sessions Judge, Karkardooma court, convicting officers Hindveer Singh, Mahesh Mishra, Pradeep Kumar, Pushpender Kumar and Haripal Singh for offences punishable under provisions of the IPC, including Sections 365(kidnapping)/304(death by negligence)/167(public servant framing an incorrect document with intent to cause injury)/34 (common intention). On March 20, 2019, the trial court sentenced them to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment. Kunwar Pal Singh, the investigating officer of the case, was convicted of kidnapping and common intention by the trial court and sentenced to three years imprisonment whereas police officer Vinod Kumar Pandey was acquitted for lack of evidence.

The deceased was identified as Sonu. His father had lodged a complaint stating that on September 1, 2006, Noida Police in plainclothes took away his son from their home in village Hazaratpur. The next morning he allegedly received information from Khurja Dehat police station that Sonu had committed suicide at Sector-20 police station in Noida. An investigation by Crime Branch-CID, in their chargesheet, stated that the police officers “without any justifiable reason” took Sonu from his house and brought him to police chowki Nithari in Sector-31 in their private vehicle in relation to a robbery case. At 3.25 am on September 2, 2006, Sonu was lodged in the locker of Sector-20 police station.

The investigation stated that “due to false implication in robbery case and on account of atrocities caused by police, Sonu due to physical and unbearable mental stress, allegedly committed suicide and was found hanging in the lockup at about 5.30 am”.

The court noted that the IO of the case registered under section 392 (robbery) stated that he was informed by three police officers that on August 31, 2006, the mobile phone stolen in the robbery had shown a trace pursuant to surveillance in Khurja.

The court noted that Sonu allegedly disclosed that “pursuant to his being apprehended, he stated that he had handed over that phone to… a resident of Khurja city”.

“However, it is notable that neither the phone was recovered nor produced during the trial nor (the man who was handed over the phone by Sonu) was traced or apprehended. The investigation relating to stolen phone… and its trail ran cold,” the bench said.

“None of the five police personnel was in uniform and none of them disclosed to the family of the deceased that they were police officials,” the court said.

The court noted that the officers had come in a “private car” and came asking for Sonu “stating that they had come to purchase land and asked Sonu to show them the land and then took him in that car”. On this, the court said that if they had come to arrest Sonu in the robbery FIR then there was “no reason for such deception to be employed”.

“The circumstances, therefore, in which Sonu was arrested and taken by the police is unambiguously suspicious and mired in serious doubt,” the HC said.

“It is extremely odd that all relevant police personnel, who ought to be available at the PS at that time, refused to acknowledge their presence in that time period,” the HC added.

Raising questions on the defence’s claim that Sonu died due to suicide, the HC said, “It is hard to accept that deceased committed suicide and then sustained such injuries during the process of being saved by trained police personnel.”

Observing the discrepancies in the case of the accused, the HC said, “These discrepancies are glaring and can only underscore the case of the prosecution that all police personnel present on that night belonging to PS Sector-20 were somehow stretching themselves hard to disclaim their presence at the time post lodging of Sonu by the accused police team. It is, therefore, completely clear that the conduct of all these police officials refusing to acknowledge their presence after the lodging of Sonu or around that time leads to a conclusion that the situation in the PS at that time was not fine.”

It also rejected a plea by Sonu’s father to convert the convictions from one under Section 304 (death by negligence) to one under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC.