SHIV KUMAR THAKUR Vs. COMMISSIONER OF POLICE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The prayer in this Petition is for the payment of a sum of Rs.5,00,000/- as compensation for the wrongful prosecution of the Petitioner. The allegation is that money was demanded from the Petitioner by a police officer with the threat that otherwise a case will be registered against him. The bribe having not been paid, an FIR was lodged. The Petitioner was arrested on 30.8.1998 and despite numerous applications for being enlarged on bail, remained incarcerated till 27.7.2001 on which date he was acquitted by a detailed Judgment of the learned Additional Sessions Judge, New Delhi. The following observations in the Judgment have been especially relied on by the learned Counsel for the Petitioner: 12. From the entire evidence recorded in the case, I come to the conclusion that it is a case, in which the accused has been falsely implicated because the accused could not pay money to the police. The accused himself got burnt in this case. He was frequent visitor to the house of deceased and her children used to call him as Laddoo Chacha. That shows that he was having family relations with the family of Tara Devi and used to visit her house very often. On the day of incident, he received burn injuries during the incident and it has come in the testimony of the witnesses that he had put shawl / chaddar over the body of the deceased and was bringing her out in his lap. He sought the help of neighbours for removing her to the hospital and she was immediately removed to the hospital. There seems to be no motive for the accused to commit the murder of the deceased. The story regarding refusal by the deceased to pay him Rs.150/- is unbelievable. This entire story seems to have been cooked-up at the instance of police, by the complainant after about 12-14 days of the incident. What is surprising in this case is that the police did not lodge the FIR on 17.7.1998, when the lady got burnt and received 98% burns. If the witnesses are to be believed, the police was told about the burning of Tara Devi by the accused on the same very day. Two children have stated that they told their father on the same evening, how the mother got burnt. There was no reasons for PW1 to hold back this information from the police. But it seems that this entire story has been cooked up later on. If this story had been true, PW 1 Roop Narain, whose wife had been burnt would not have shown any concession to the accused and would have immediately told the police, the role played by the accused, but the facts are otherwise. Now coming to the MLC of the deceased and the history recorded by the Doctor, from the mouth of the deceased, it has been very clearly recorded by the Doctor that the deceased caught fire accidentally due to busting of stove. Same fact must have been told to PW 1. Since PW 1 in his testimony in the Court has stated that somebody was saying there that his wife had caught fire due to bursting of stove. He did not disclose as to who was this somebody. It is possible that his own children had told him that mother had caught fire due to bursting of stove. His statement that the children were taken by the accused to his house, further confirm this. The children would not have gone to the house of the accused, if the accused was a culprit in the case and had burnt their mother. It seems that the police, after coming to know of this fact, wanted to extort money from the accused. On one hand, the police asked the accused to give money, on the other hand, police seems to have threatened the complainant that if he did not make the complaint, he would be implicated in the case. The complainant was threatened to make this complaint after 12 days of the incident, making a story against the accused. The accused was persuaded by the police to pay money but when the accuse failed to pay the amount demanded by the police, after about one month of receiving the complaint, the police arrested him in this case and sent him for trial. Here is case, where the accused had to spend a valuable period of his life in the jail because the police cooked up a case against him and converted the accidental case into a murder case. That is the reason that the prosecution did not prove the MLC in the Court, where the Doctor had specifically recorded that the patient gave the history of burning by bursting of stove. I find the accused is innocent, and I hereby acquit him. 13. I consider that it is a fit case, where the State must compensate the accused. Commissioner of Police is directed to initiate action against the Investigating Officer concerned and other police officials, who did not register the FIR, regarding the burning of the woman Tara Devi on 17th or 18th July, 1998 and registered a cooked up case after 12 days of the incident, after they failed to extract money from the accused. He is also directed to suitably compensate he accused. The accused is at liberty to initiate the proceedings for seeking compensation from the State.

(2.) Learned Counsel for the Petitioner has cited several judgments in order to substantiate his case that compensation can and should be granted.

(3.) I do not propose to deal with each one of them separately as a Restatement of the law is available in the erudite as well as perspicuous Judgment of the Division Bench in Poonam Sharma v. Union of India and Others, 100 (2002) DLT 721=AIR 2003 Delhi 50. In addition to the ten cases relied upon by the Petitioner before me, the Judgment of the Division Bench is a virtual history of the development of the law pertaining to the grant of compensation either under Article 226 or Article 32 of the Constitution of India.