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Journalism of Courage
Father Frazer Mascarenhas, former principal of St Xavier’s College, on Thursday told the Bombay High Court that he will challenge the magistrate’s judicial inquiry report into the custodial death of his late friend Father Stan Swamy, an accused in the Elgaar Parishad case.
Mascarenhas said the magistrate’s report had concluded that Swamy’s death was due to natural causes, a finding later affirmed by the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC). The HC disposed of his plea seeking a judicial inquiry, granting him liberty to file a fresh petition challenging both the magistrate’s report and the SHRC order. Swamy died in custody on July 5, 2021.
The court was hearing Mascarenhas’s plea, filed in his capacity as de facto next of kin after being appointed by the Jamshedpur Jesuit Province, with which Swamy was associated. He had sought directions to initiate the mandatory judicial inquiry under Section 176(1-A) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) into Swamy’s death.
Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh submitted that the substantive prayers in the petition no longer survived as the inquiry had already been conducted, and that the petitioner could challenge the report independently. Senior advocate Mihir Desai, appearing for Mascarenhas, said he intended to challenge both the magistrate’s report and the SHRC order separately. The court accepted this and disposed of the original plea.
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