Photo of the body of person who died in judicial custody obtained through RTI
24 Jun, 2013In January, 2010 a person Krishan Kumar, sent to jail by Gurgaon court, was found dead in the judicial custody the cause of which as stated by the jail officials was heart attack.
However, the family of the deceased approached the Deputy Commissioner alleging that Kumar was murdered as his brother was about to unravel a bogus-vote racket involving political players. After this a magisterial probe was ordered into the case.
The magistrate found that the post mortem of the body was conducted only after his directions. He also mentioned that as per doctors, the possibility of death due to injuries couldn’t be ruled out. The magistrate also held that the involvement of political persons, police personnel, jail authorities and doctors necessitates an investigation from an independent authority.
However no action was taken on the magistrate’s report for two years.
Then Kumar’s widow filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking the photographs of the body of her husband. She produced the photographs received in the reply before the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking CBI probe into the case.
As the photographs received in the reply showed injury marks on the body, the High Court has asked the Haryana police as to why the investigation of the custodial death should not be handed over to Central Bureau of Investigation.