SWARANJEET SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, father of the deceased-Harinder Singh, has approached this Court for issuance of writ in the nature of mandamus directing the respondent-State to award monetary compensation to the tune of ' 20 lacs on account of custodial death. It has been submitted that Harinder Singh-deceased was lodged in Central Jail, Amritsar for facing trial of offence under Section 61 of the Punjab Excise Act. According to the petitioner, his son was beaten in the jail premises, who later on succumbed to the injuries. An attempt was made to put the matter under carpet but with the intervention of this Court, FIR bearing No. 275 dated 13.7.2007 was registered at Police Station Sadar Amritsar against the accused namely, Gurdip Singh son of Gurdip Singh, Paramjit Singh son of Hushank Singh and Kulwinder Singh son of Gurcharan Singh.

(2.) Mr. Navdeep Chhabra, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submitted that on 26.10.2006, Harinder Singh (since deceased) was produced before the Court and after the proceedings of the Court, was taken back to the jail safely and in good health. However, at about 5.22 PM on 27.10.2006, he was brought to the Civil Hospital and declared dead at 6.30 PM. On 28.10.2006, Postmortem Report was prepared by the Department of Forensic Medicines, Government Medical College, Amritsar and as per the report the Postmortem Report (Annexure P-1) it was found that there were certain external injuries on his body, as a result thereof, the son of the petitioner died.

(3.) On 13.11.2006, the petitioner submitted written communications to various authorities i.e. the Chairman Human Rights Commission, Punjab Hon'ble the Chief Justice Punjab and Haryana High Court etc., which was treated as Crl.Misc. Petition No. 74621-M of 2006. A medical opinion dated 6.1.2007 (Annexure P-2) was relied upon by the petitioner to allege that the deceased had died on account of craniocerebral injury leading to intracranial hemorrhage, resulting into injury No. 1 and 2 which is sufficient to cause death in ordinary course of nature.