Lahra Bai Tamre and Others v. State of Chhattisgarh
Background
Shravan Suryavanshi died in police custody in January 2024, days after being arrested over a minor liquor-possession offence carrying a maximum three-year sentence; a post-mortem found multiple injuries including a head injury, contradicting the jail's own medical report which had recorded the cause of death as unrelated to any assault. His widow and daughters sought a fair investigation and compensation from the Chhattisgarh High Court, which found custodial violence had occurred but awarded only Rs. 1 lakh compensation and issued no direction to investigate or prosecute anyone. The family then approached the Supreme Court.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court found that senior Chhattisgarh police and prison officials had given false and evasive explanations for never registering an FIR or investigating the death, despite a judicial inquiry report on the custodial death having been available all along; the Court called the officials' conduct "sacrilegious" and a "cover-up." It ordered the CBI to immediately register a criminal case and investigate the custodial death, including examining why state officials failed to act on the inquiry report, and directed the State to pay Rs. 25 lakh in interim compensation to the family within four weeks, with final compensation to be decided later.
Lesson Learnt
Courts will not accept a state's inaction or evasive explanations when there is documented evidence of a custodial death, and families of custodial death victims can secure both an independent CBI investigation and substantial interim compensation even where local authorities and lower courts have failed to act.