It is common knowledge that in India torture is professionally sanctioned and practised as a potent means of criminal investigation. There are honourable exceptions of course but in an alarming number of cases, the police and also paramilitary and military forces resort to this barbaric practice as a tool for extracting information from those in custody, circumventing the criminal justice system and undermining the rule of law. India signed the United Nations Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) in 1997 but is yet to ratify it. The specious rationalisation is that existing laws are sufficient to prevent this gross human rights violation. In a belated but welcome move, the Government of India has now given the nod for an anti-torture Bill that is aimed at harmonising our laws with CAT, a condition that is necessary for its ratification. Under the Prevention of Torture Bill, public servants who obtain a confession by causing grievous physical or mental hurt or danger to the life of any person are guilty of torture and liable for imprisonment up to 10 years.
Our existing laws deal with torture as if it were a regular offence. Provisions in the Indian Penal Code such as Section 330 (grievous hurt) may apply to torture cases but are limited in two ways. First, they apply only in situations where specific kinds of physical injuries are inflicted and fail to cover the gamut of ways in which torture is committed. Secondly, for the purposes of such sections, it is of no relevance whether the perpetrator of the offence is a public servant or not. A specific and separate law is necessary in the face of the widespread use of torture and the alarming number of custodial deaths caused by it. Describing torture and death in police custody as the “most heinous crimes,” the Supreme Court lamented some days ago that they were on the rise despite constitutional and statutory safeguards. According to the National Human Rights Commission, 2,318 cases of death in police custody and 716 fake encounters have been registered with it since 1993. Such numbers are merely indicative. It is an open secret that custodial deaths are routinely registered as suicides and encounters are frequently staged to murder those under detention. A built-in weakness in the proposed torture law is that the police will continue to have the responsibility of investigating such cases. This is one reason why complaints about torture rarely result in successful prosecution. Even so, the Prevention of Torture Bill can make a worthwhile difference to tackling one of the major issues of policing in India.
