The Mumbai Police Commissioner, to initiate an inquiry by an officer, not below the rank of Inspector General of Police, into the alleged custodial death of a laborer, at the Mankhurd police station, in 2015
"Someone jumps a traffic signal and your men (policemen), tell him that a crime is committed, even assault him and here, instead of suspending the police officer in charge, no proper process of law is followed," observed the Bombay High Court, on Wednesday, while asking the Mumbai Police Commissioner, to initiate an inquiry by an officer, not below the rank of Inspector General of Police, into the alleged custodial death of a laborer, at the Mankhurd police station, in 2015.
A division bench of Justice B R Gavai and Justice B P Colabawala, expressing displeasure on the way the investigations were being carried out and that the police had not registered a First Information Report (FIR) or asked the judicial magistrate to conduct an inquiry, mandatory under section 173 of the Criminal Procedure Code, said "Ignorance of law cannot be an excuse for citizens, the same applies to policemen."
The bench issued the directive, while hearing a petition filed by Deepa Jadhav, wife of the deceased Deepak Jadhav. Advocate Chetan Mali, appearing for Jadhav, had argued that Jadhav, was brought to Mankhurd police station by some local residents, who claimed that he was trying to steal bikes from near a residential society.
However, a few hours later, his body was found hanging from the ceiling fan inside the changing room of the police officials inside the station. It was alleged that police had assaulted him, which led to his death and that they had eventually made the incident look like a suicide case.
Additional Public Prosecutor, Mankuwar Deshmukh though defended the police by saying that the deceased had simply walked into the changing room of the police station, situated on the second floor of the police station building and committed suicide by hanging himself. To which the court, said, "The version is difficult to digest, inquiry by executive magistrate and not by judicial magistrate is done with total ignorance of law or with some other purpose."
The court has now posted the matter for further hearing after four weeks and asked the police to submit a progress report on the inquiry.
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