OILABHAI M VASAVA Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this petition invoking Articles 14, 21 and 226 of the Constitution, the petitioner has prayed, in fact, for compensation in terms of the Government Resolutions dated 16.10.1982 and 4.5.1991.

(2.) The factual background of the petition is epitomizing the plight of a poor backward class citizen who has fallen victim to not only his own misfortune but the callous and ruthless treatment by not only the police but the officers of the higher echelons of the Government. (1) According to the petition, the petitioner lost his mother when he was a young boy and his only near relative and guardian was his father, a poor agricultural worker. While the father had gone for some time to live with his sister in a nearby village, on 25.8.1992, a few named members of the police staff came to the house of the petitioner's father's brother-in-law. They arrested that host alongwith his father, took them to the police post at Amletha, handcuffed them and paraded them through the village and so mercilessly beat them that his father lost his life. On coming to know about the arrest, the petitioner, who must have been a young boy at that time, reached the police post to find that a large number of people had gathered at the Police outpost and he himself had to see the scene of his father being beaten to death by none other than the members of the police force. When the petitioner followed the cavalcade of police vehicles to the civil hospital, he could not see his father and he was turned out by someone on the ground that the D.S.P. had come there. It was only on the next day that some policemen came to fetch the petitioner and take him to the hospital for handing over the dead-body of his father. The dead-body had a number of injuries on it. (2) The police did not register any case against anyone. On 28th August, 1992, an NGO, named Lok Adhikar Sangh, filed a public interest litigation in this Court and after admission of that petition, being Special Civil Application No. 1434 of 1992, the Dy.S.P., Rajpipla directed the Circle Inspector of Police at Ankleshwar to enquire into the matter and an offence came to be registered as C.R. No. 278 of 1992 for the offences punishable under Sections 302 and 114 of the Indian Penal Code. Subsequently, chargesheet was filed against two policemen of Amletha outpost and two members of the so-called Gram Rakshak Dal. One Mr. K.R. Parmar- Circle Police Inspector at Ankleshwar stated in his affidavit-in-reply filed in this Court in SCA No. 1434 of 1992 that he had enquired about the accused by making enquiries but they were not found and they had not attended their duties. It was found by him that, on 2.9.1992, three of the accused had moved the Sessions Court for anticipatory bail under Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the learned Sessions Judge had ordered not to arrest them till their application for bail was decided. He further stated that another case registered as C.R. No. (I) 274 of 1992 revealed that the deceased father had committed an offence on 25.8.1992 in which the allegation was that he had attacked police personnel when they had gone in connection with the enquiry of the accused who was absconding. It was alleged that the deceased had tried to snatch away the rifle from the police personnel. It is, in substance, stated that the witnesses were co-operating in the investigation in the case against the deceased but, the witnesses were not co- operating in the investigation against the police.

(3.) After the above facts emerging from the petition and documents placed on record, the important fact brought to the notice of the Court by the judgment delivered in November, 1997 of the Additional Sessions Judge, Bharuch in Special Atrocity Case No. 64 of 1993 is that all the accused persons were acquitted and no appeal was filed by the State. One remarkable fact emerging from the bare perusal of the said judgment is that deposition of the petitioner was recorded in the trial court as Exh. 13 but no discussion thereof was found in the judgment. Thus, in short, a case of alleged murder resulted into acquittal, despite the deposition of several eye witnesses including the son of the deceased, the present petitioner and without any discussion of his deposition. Therefore, it is prima facie a case of miscarriage of justice.