Custodial deaths: Plea seeks fresh Supreme Court norms

Samanwaya.Rautray@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Several decades after the Supreme Court laid down guidelines in the DK Basu case to prevent custodial torture and deaths, a petition has been moved in the top court seeking fresh guidelines in the light of the recent incident in which a father-son duo in Tamil Nadu died allegedly after torture in police custody.

The court had, in a series of rulings, provided for checks against custodial torture. These included mandatory wearing of badges for officials, informing families of those being questioned and CCTV cameras in police stations. These were in addition to the safeguards provided for in the law after an arrest was made and were to apply at the pre-arrest stage. It also made a magisterial inquiry into any custodial death time-bound. But the judgement remains on paper only.


The latest petition pointed out that even though prosecutions are initiated in some cases of police excesses, there were no convictions between 2005 and 2018.