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The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday stayed an order passed by the Calcutta High Court (HC) directing a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged custodial torture of a woman arrested during a protest against the Kolkata rape-murder.
According to news agency PTI, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan asked the West Bengal Government to submit a list of seven Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, including five women, who could be included in a fresh Special Investigation Team (SIT) for probing the custodial torture case.
The order was passed on an appeal filed by the West Bengal Government which had stated the HC had erroneously passed the order directing a CBI probe and that the state police was capable of the investigation.
On November 6, a division bench of the Calcutta HC upheld an order of a single judge directing a CBI investigation into the allegations levelled by the protestor.
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The bench said that the order of the single bench for conducting an independent investigation cannot be faulted and does not call for any interference.
According to PTI, HC dismissed the appeal made by the West Bengal Government, and directed the central probe agency to comply with the order of the single bench.
Two petitioners, both women, had moved the single bench of HC alleging physical torture in police custody. The court took into consideration a report of a jail doctor who found signs of hematoma (a solid swelling of clotted blood within tissue) on the legs of one of them.
On October 8, the single bench directed CBI to conduct a thorough investigation into the allegation of physical torture in police custody.
Hearing an appeal by the West Bengal Government challenging the single bench order, the division bench of HC said that after hearing both the state and the petitioner, it found that the order passed by the single judge was "just and proper" and did not call for any interference.
"The first and most startling fact which has greatly disturbed our mind is the discrepancy in the recording of the medical condition of the petitioner by two different authorities," the bench said.
The woman was arrested on September 7 and remained in the custody of Falta Police Station in the Diamond Harbour Police District till she was remanded in judicial custody by the Diamond Harbour Court the next day, HC noted.
According to PTI, the division bench said that while the report of the medical officer of Diamond Harbour sub-correctional home states hematoma in both legs of Das, the examining doctor of Diamond Harbour Medical College and Hospital recorded that there was no external injury on the woman.
Noting subsequent medical reports of the petitioner, the bench said that it is prima facie clear that the trauma occurred on her on September 7 while she was in police custody.
The court said that the discrepancies are serious and would warrant an independent agency to conduct the investigation.
The bench noted that as per the lower court's findings, the petitioners were not named in the first information report (FIR) and that there was no direct allegation against them.
The lawyer representing the women submitted that they were only present at a venue where certain offensive comments were allegedly made, over which the FIR was lodged.
West Bengal has seen a spate of protests since August after the Kolkata rape-murder came to light. The body of a 31-year postgraduate trainee was found from the seminar room of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in the state capital.
The probe into the Kolkata rape-murder case is being conducted by the CBI.
(With PTI inputs)
