In February this year, Justice S.S. Sodhi of the Punjab and Haryana High Court went on a routine inspection tour of Amritsar Central Jail. It turned out to be a shocking experience. Appalled by the complaints he heard from under trials there, he sent a copy of his report to Punjab Governor S.S. Ray in April.
Ray reportedly called for immediate action and the report was referred to the police and jails department. It has not been made public. The contents are highly damaging to the police.
Many of the 780 under trials in the high security Central Jail, Amritsar, Sodhi reports, complained that before being formally arrested, they were invariably illegally detained by the police for a couple of weeks. During that period, the under trials were tortured and money extracted from them. Several also alleged that they were falsely implicated.
Under trials complained that when they were granted bail by court, the police would rearrests them in some new case. Other under trials, though granted bail, chose not to leave the jail as they could not meet the demands for money made by the police.
Several under trials the judge found were languishing in jail be Continued from Page 1 Cause the police had delayed issuing chalaans against them.
The report also questions the basis of some arrests, Some under trials charged with raising antinational slogans, Sodhi observers, were old people who “appeared quite incapable of committing such an offense.”
And referring to the 700 cases pending in the Additional Designated Court, Amritsar, Sodhi says: “Delay blurs the distinction between acquittal and conviction, which is most unfortunate.”
Of equal concern is the poor conviction rate eight out of the 364 cases under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act disposed of by the Additional Designated Court in two years. One ‘reason, Sodhi says, could be that ‘witnesses are afraid. But the poor record also raises questions about the investigations and suspicions About “innocent persons too haying been implicated.”
The cases registered under the Ams Actand for harboring terrorist and raising antinational slogans, the judge notes, are significant. “A stereotyped set pattern of their contents emerges almost as if there is a prescribed preform a where names etc. are filled in. What is more, one has to strain ‘one’s credibility to accept the version given in these reports.”
Coming as it does from a person held in high esteem in legal circles, Sodhi’s report is damning. The police have some serious explaining to do.
Meanwhile, a Supreme Court lawyer, R.K Garg and a former Congress (I) State general secretary, Gurbir Singh, have challenged last year’s 59th Constitution Amendment Bill which authorizes the Union government to declare an emergency in Punjab in the event of internal disturbances. Garg argued that applying the emergency provisions only to Punjab permanently alienates its people from the rest of the country. And S:S. Grewal, former advocate general of Punjab, said: “If without such draconian laws, the police can unleash such terror, the situation if emergency is declared is hard to comprehend.” He was hardly alone in entertaining that fear. STa2(From India Today).
Article extracted from this publication >> September 29, 1989
