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People's Union for Civil Liberties v. State of Maharashtra

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 1255 of 1999)Decided 23 Sept 2014
Criminal Appeal No. 1255 of 1999
Chief Justice R.M. Lodha · Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman

Background

PUCL challenged the genuineness of numerous Mumbai police encounters in which people died. The proceedings raised the need for a reliable procedure to investigate police shootings. This order addressed that procedure rather than deciding whether each disputed encounter was unlawful.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court prescribed sixteen binding requirements for effective independent investigations of encounter deaths. They included recording intelligence, registering an FIR, investigation by CID or a separate police team, a mandatory magisterial inquiry, preservation of forensic evidence and a videographed post-mortem by two doctors. Families were to be informed, injured people treated, and premature gallantry rewards avoided; disciplinary action was required where investigation disclosed criminal conduct. Victims' families could complain to the Sessions Judge about non-compliance, and the requirements applied to grievous-injury encounters as far as possible.

Lesson Learnt

A police account of a fatal encounter must be tested through an independent, documented investigation. Victims' families have a route to raise failures of that process before the local Sessions Judge.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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