Observing that custodial violence is “abhorrent and not acceptable in a civilized society”, the Supreme Court refused to entertain a plea seeking compounding of offences of two police officers accused in a custodial violence case.
However, since the appellants are more than 75 years of age, the Division Bench decided to reduce the sentence awarded for conviction under section 324 (causing hurt by dangerous weapon) of the Indian Penal Code to six months instead of one year.
The judgment read, “Thus, sentence of one year is reduced to six months by awarding compensation of Rs.3.5 Lakhs each to the legal heir of the deceased in addition to the compensation awarded by the High Court”.
The Odisha High Court had convicted Pravat Chandra Mohanty and Pratap Kumar Chaudhary for “mercilessly beating” the deceased in the premises of a Police Station in 1985. So, the Supreme Court was hearing a plea challenging their conviction order and a prayer to compound the offence in view of the settlement reached between them and the legal heirs of the deceased.
Since the nature of the offence was grave, Justices Ashok Bhushan and Ajay Rastogi held, “The present is a case where the accused who were police officers, one of them being in-charge of Station and other Senior Inspector have themselves brutally beaten the deceased, who died the same night. Their offences cannot be compounded by the Court in exercise of Section 320(2) read with subsection (5). We, thus, reject the prayer of the appellants to compound the offence”.
Further, the Bench added, “The custodial violence on the deceased which led to the death is abhorrent and not acceptable in the civilized society. The offence committed by the accused is crime not against the deceased alone but was against humanity and clear violations of rights guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution”.
The compensation of rupees three lakh was not sufficient, according to the Supreme Court Bench that said, “Although the High Court has awarded the compensation of Rs.3 Lakhs in favour of the legal representatives of the deceased we are of the view that compensation awarded was not adequate”.
SabrangIndia had also reported on the High Court order convicting the police officers where the Single-judge Bench of Justice S.K Sahoo had observed, “Police excesses and maltreatment of detainees, under trial prisoners or suspects tarnishes the image of any civilised nation. Stern measures are required to be taken to check the malady against those police officials who consider themselves to be above the law and bring disrepute to their department, otherwise the foundations of the criminal justice delivery system would be shaken and common man may lose faith in the judiciary”.
The judgment may be read here:
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