GUWAHATI: A division bench of the Gauhati High Court comprising Chief Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury asked the State Government 'whether the State proposes to grant compensation to the kith and kin of all prisoners who died in custody by treating them as victims as defined under Section 357A of the Cr.PC'.
The High Court said this after hearing a PIL (10/2022) filed by Studio Nilima Collaborative Network for Research and Capacity Building and Abantee Dutta regarding custodial deaths.
The petitioners' counsel has drawn the attention of the court to the affidavit that the State authorities filed on May 12, 2023, in persuasion of the Court's direction given on March 30, 2023. "A perusal of the affidavit reveals that only in one out of 31 cases of death in custody, the statistics of which have been provided by the State, inquiry was held by a Judicial Magistrate, and only in one case, i.e., of Arjun Saharia, the IG (Prisons), Assam has granted compensation to the family members," the bench said, and said that 'the Government counsel shall take instructions on the aspect whether the State proposes to grant compensation to the kith and kin of all prisoners who died in custody by treating them to be victims as defined under Section 357A of the Cr.P.C.
The petitioners' counsel has also pointed out that 13 of the incidents took place in the jail at Goalpara. "Learned Government counsel shall also take instructions of this peculiar circumstance as emerging from the record," the bench said, listing the PIL for its next hearing on July 25, 2023.
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