The Madras High Court has taken up a suo motu public interest litigation, as directed by the Supreme Court on September 15, to identify the relatives of prisoners who had suffered unnatural death as revealed by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics for the period between 212 and 2015 and even thereafter and award suitable compensation to them if adequate compensation had not been paid already.
Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar on Thursday ordered notice, returnable by October 30, to the State Government on the PIL petition. A Bench comprising Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta of the apex court had expressed concern over custodial violence and directed all High Courts in the country to take suo motu notice and award compensation to families of prisoners who suffered unnatural death.
“Custodial violence could take the form of third degree methods to extract information. The method used need not result in any physical violence but could be in the form of psychological violence. Custodial violence could also include a violation of bodily integrity through sexual violence. It could be to satisfy the lust of a person in authority or for some other reason. The ‘Mathura Rape Case’ is one such incident that most are familiar with.
“Custodial violence could, sometimes, lead to the death of its victim who is in a terribly disadvantaged and vulnerable condition. All these forms of custodial violence make it abhorrent and invite disparagement from all sections of civilized society,” the Supreme Court had said last month and issued a slew of directions to be followed by the High Court, State Governments as well as the Centre since 551 unnatural deaths were reported in prisons across the country between 2012 and 2015.
Further pointing out that 328 of those unnatural deaths had been categorised as suicides, 35 as murders by inmates, 13 deaths due to firing, 27 due to assault by outside elements, one due to negligence of jail staff and 146 due to other reasons, the Bench led by Mr. Justice Lokur had wondered, “What does this category of ‘others’ encompass?”
