Supreme Court orders CBI probe into 2023 custodial death case; directs arrest of Madhya Pradesh police officers

The plea alleged that Deva was brutally tortured and killed by the police, who claimed the former died of a heart attack.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has entrusted the investigation into the custodial death of a young man to the CBI and directed the central agency to forthwith register the case and immediately arrest Madhya Pradesh police officers responsible for the 2023 incident.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said this is a classic case warranting invocation of the Latin maxim nemo judex in causa sua, which means ‘no one should be a judge in his own cause’.

The court allowed a petition by Hansura Bai and another person, the mother and aunt of the deceased, respectively, who assailed the Madhya Pradesh High Court's December 20, 2024 order, which declined their plea to transfer the investigation into the custodial death of Deva Pardhi due to alleged torture and intense third-degree treatment to some other investigating agency.

The petitioners alleged that the deceased and his uncle Gangaram Pardhi were picked up from home during the haldi ceremony on the date of his marriage, July 14, 2023, in a theft case. Both were severely tortured in the police station, causing Deva's death. It was only after the magisterial inquiry that an FIR was lodged, but no police officer was arrested in the case.

Upon hearing the counsel, Justice Mehta wrote a 21-page judgment for the bench and pointed out that the credibility of the investigating agency should be impeccable. However, the power to transfer investigations to a certain investigating agency must be sparingly used in the interest of justice and to maintain public trust in the institution.

"If the investigating agency is privy to the dispute, it may raise doubts about the credibility of the investigation and thus make out a ground to transfer the investigation," the court said.

In the case, the bench said the allegation of causing custodial death was against the local police officials of Myana Police Station. The fact that the police officials had influenced the investigation from the beginning was amply borne out by the circumstance that even the doctors who conducted the autopsy of the body seemed to have been pressurised and influenced, it noted.

Till date, not one of the police officials responsible for the death in custody has been arrested, even though eight months have passed since the lodging of the FIR, the court noted.

After finding that the members of the medical board which conducted the post-mortem failed to express any opinion on the cause of his death, the bench said, "This omission seems to be deliberate rather than unintentional and appears to be a direct result of influence being exercised by the local police officials."

The court concluded that these circumstances gave rise to a clear inference that the investigation by the local police was not being carried out in a fair and transparent manner and that there was an imminent possibility of the prosecution being subjugated by the accused if the investigation was left in the hands of the State police, who were apparently shielding their own fellow policemen due to camaraderie.

The court ordered the jurisdictional Superintendent of Police, CBI, to forthwith direct the registration of the regular case and ensure a fair, transparent, and expeditious investigation into the custodial death of Deva Pardhi.

"The police officials found responsible for the custodial death shall be arrested forthwith and not later than a period of one month from today. The investigation shall be concluded within a period of 90 days from the date of the arrest of the accused," the bench said.

The bench found a deliberate attempt was being made to implicate Gangaram Pardhi in multiple cases, one after the other, to keep him behind bars indefinitely, break his spirit, and that of his family members, thereby ensuring that Gangaram, being the star witness of the custodial death of Deva Pardhi, was not only demoralised but also prevented from deposing against the errant police officials.

The court fixed the responsibility to provide safety and security to Gangaram Pardhi, either in prison or after being released on bail, on the Principal Secretary (Home) and the Director General of Police, Madhya Pradesh. It granted liberty to Gangaram Pardhi to directly move the High Court for bail in all the cases in which he has been implicated after the incident of July 13-14, 2024.

It noted that the sole eye-witness, Gangaram, the uncle of the deceased, was shifted from Guna to Gwalior jail due to a threat to his life.