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The bench sought a response to the lacuna such as the free availability of a safe space for conducting interrogations without any oversight on stand-alone premises of a police officer in a gala, ostensibly not being a “police station”, staying outside the coverage of CCTV cameras.
The Bombay High Court has granted interim bail to a man allegedly subjected to physical torture while in police custody.
The division bench, comprising Justice Arif Doctor and Justice Somshekhar Sundaresan, was hearing a petition filed by Sunil Rathod, who claimed that the Vasai Virar police arrested his brother around 3 AM on November 5 and was brutally assaulted.
The bench had previously ordered the man's immediate hospitalization at JJ Hospital. A report from the hospital indicated an injury on the right side of his back, with contusions of varying sizes in that region and tenderness. It was further alleged that the man had been beaten with sticks, a leather belt, and fists, leading to him losing consciousness.
It was further alleged that after losing consciousness, the man was revived and subjected to additional torture, during which he was forced to place his thumb impression and signature on several blank pages. He was also coerced into implicating his father, the main accused in the FIR, by admitting to a debt of Rs. 3 crores allegedly owed by his father to the complainant.
The bench in its order while granting interim bail to the man noted that “the treatment by the magistrate of the complaint of physical torture, the inexplicable change of view on the need for arrest the Detenu that too at 3:00 a.m. after he had been released the previous evening, the intervening threat of legal action by lawyers of the Detenu alleging physical torture, and the nothings in the case diary about apprehension of conspiracy to stall investigations on the basis of the alleged torture, the arrest of the Detenu prima facie appears to be illegal,” the order reads.
The bench further directed authorities to retrieve and preserve all CCTV footage from the cameras outside the ACP's office at Chandan Park, Virar, and around the Vasai Virar Municipal Corporation Hospital premises.
Additionally, the bench sought a response from the authorities regarding the lacuna such as the free availability of a safe space for conducting interrogations without any oversight on stand-alone premises of a police officer in a gala, ostensibly not being a “police station”, staying outside the coverage of CCTV cameras.
Case title: Sunil Sheshrao Rathod vs State of Maharashtra
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