India may be finding it tough to secure extraditions because there is a fear within the international community that the accused persons would be subject to torture here, the Supreme Court said on Monday.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said it was a matter of both Article 21 (fundamental right to life and dignity) and of international reputation that the government must consider promulgating a standalone, comprehensive law to define and punish torture as an instrument of “human degradation” by state authorities.
“Such a law is in the national interest. The difficulty that India faces in matters of extradition may be because there is torture,” Justice Chandrachud observed.
The court referred to the setback suffered by the CBI in its efforts to get Kim Davy — a Danish citizen and prime accused in the Purulia arms drop case of 1995 — extradited from Denmark. A Danish court had rejected the plea on the ground that he would risk “torture or other inhuman treatment” in India.
“This issue needs to be dealt with and dealt with quickly,” Chief Justice Khehar told Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the Centre.
Tackling torture
The court agreed with former Union Law Minister Ashwini Kumar, who filed the PIL plea in his personal capacity, that India, which had signed the UN Convention against torture way back in 1997, had still not ratified it. The Convention defines torture as a criminal offence.
Mr. Kumar submitted that no steps had been taken to implement the Prevention of Torture Bill 2010 even six years after it was passed by the Lok Sabha on May 6, 2010 and recommended by a Select Committee of the Rajya Sabha of which he had been Chairman.
He informed that the Centre had avoided an independent legislation on torture, saying that some States were not in favour of such a law and the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code were more than sufficient.
“It is not understood at all as to why the Government is resisting a standalone legislation to prevent custodial torture considering the mandate of Article 21 and India’s international obligations. A standalone legislation will certainly go a long way in creating the necessary environment to prevent abuse of custodial torture and human dignity of citizen,” Mr. Kumar contended.
Support from States
He pointed out that 90% of the States had no objection for a special law on torture and the NHRC itself had strongly supported the need for such a law.
The petition pointed out that the Indian Penal Code did not specifically and comprehensively address the various aspects of custodial torture and was “grossly inadequate in addressing the spiralling situation of custodial violence across the country.”
NHRC kept count
The petition contended that the NHRC kept count of incidents of custodial torture only if the inhuman treatment led to death and not otherwise. So a majority of cases simply went unreported.
“Unlike custodial deaths, the police are not required to report cases of torture which do not result in deaths to the NHRC,” Mr. Kumar contended.
The Solicitor-General said the question of a special law on torture had already been referred to the Law Commission of India. He sought time till May 5, 2017 to respond in detail.
