The Allahahad High Court on Friday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to take immediate action as per law against the policemen accused of assaulting and torturing a former armyman in Pilibhit district in May. It also asked the State to conclude the investigation and departmental proceeding expeditiously, preferably within three months, while ensuring a fair probe into the charges levelled by victim Resham Singh as well the FIR lodged for ‘violating COVID-19 protocol and using force against officials to deter them from carrying out their duty’.
An ordinary citizen or a common man is hardly equipped to match the might of the State or its instrumentalities, the court stated as it passed the order.
“A public functionary if he acts maliciously or oppressively and the exercise of power results in harassment and agony then it is not an exercise of power but its abuse. No law provides protection against it. He who is responsible for it must suffer it. But when it arises due to arbitrary or capricious behaviour then it loses its individual character and assumes social significance,” a division bench of Justices Surya Prakash Kesarwani and Piyush Agrawal said.
Report not submitted
The judges noted that the preliminary inquiry report directed by the SP of Pilibhit was yet to be submitted even after three months, prima facie, indicating “casual, illegal and arbitrary approach of the” police.
Resham Singh had said that on May 3, when he, with his mother and two sisters, was going from Pilibhit to Lalhimpur Kheri to pay homage to his brother-in-law, who died a day earlier, they were stopped by the police near Anaj Mandi in Puranpur in Pilibhit. The police then asked the family about their destination and demanded the papers of the car they were travelling in. Since sorting out the papers took some time, the police on duty got annoyed and started abusing the family, and when they resisted, beat him up, he alleged. The police then forcefully took him and his family to the police station without any assistance of a lady officer. The police then disrobed him, tied him on a cot and brutally beat him for two hours using sticks, fist and leg blows, gave him third degree torture and abused him, he further alleged. He accused the police of inserting a lathi inside his anus .
‘Not taken to hospital’
Locals gathered at the police station and recorded a video of the torture but the police got the videos deleted, Mr. Singh stated, adding that to justify their act, the police registered an FIR against him and his family but subsequently dropped the names of the family members and some sections of the IPC against him. The police also allegedly removed his turban, which is a symbol of his faith. Although he was injured, the police did not take him to hospital for medical examination and it was only after he uploaded a video on social media narrating the atrocities faced by him, a note was taken by the district police chief, he said.
While the government had told the court that an SIT had been constituted and a fair investigation was going on in the case, Mr. Singh accused the police of not fairly investigating the matter. They were yet to register cases under relevant provisions of the IPC against the police officers, he further stated.
“Harassment of a common man by public authorities is socially abhorring and legally impermissible. It may harm him personally but the injury to society is far more grievous. Nothing is more damaging than the feeling of helplessness. An ordinary citizen instead of complaining and fighting succumbs to the pressure of undesirable functioning in offices instead of standing against it,” the High Court observed.
