Illegal custody of inter-faith couple: Delhi High Court pulls up police.

Source – indianexpress.com

The Delhi High Court Monday pulled up the Uttar Pradesh Police for illegally taking into custody an inter-faith couple from the JNU campus in July 2018 and assaulting the husband. It also directed the state DGP to write a letter apologising “for the conduct of his police officials”.

A bench of Justice S Muralidhar and Justice Talwant Singh further ordered the UP government to pay a compensation of Rs 50,000 each to the couple for wrongful custody and handing over the woman to her parents against her wishes. The HC ordered that the couple be reunited immediately, and assigned them two PSOs.

It also directed the Delhi Police Commissioner and the UP DGP to initiate disciplinary action against officials involved, including SHOs from Vasant Kunj (North) and Ghaziabad’s Loni police stations. The action was recommended on the basis of findings of a High Court-appointed committee, set up after the HC was dissatisfied with the handling of the case by police personnel.

The committee, comprising retired Delhi HC judge Justice S P Garg and former IPS officer Kanwaljeet Deol, found that officials of Loni police station had manipulated official records and made incorrect and false entries, and had visited Delhi without taking permission from higher officials.

It also found that the beat constable at JNU, a head constable from the Vasant Kunj police station, did not inform his SHO about UP police’s visit.

During the hearing of the husband’s habeas corpus plea, advocate Dibyanshu Pandey sought for the wife to be produced, and alleged that they were illegally removed from their JNU residence and the husband was assaulted in lock-up.

The man had submitted that the two got married on June 28 last year and were registered with the Marriage Registration Officer-V in Ghaziabad. The woman’s father then approached Loni police and the man was taken into custody from July 3 to 5 and threatened with false rape charges if he tried to reunite with his wife.

The bench further ordered disciplinary inquiry in each case by a senior-level official, to be completed no later than in six months.

The judge observed in the 35-page order that “this is not a one-off instance of failure by the police official of a particular State where an FIR/complaint has been registered and the police officials have failed to follow the due procedures set out in the CrPC and other instructions issued from time to time concerning arrest of persons in a different State/Union Territory”.

It also directed the Delhi and UP Police to implement suggestions given by the committee, to be followed by the police when they enter another state or union territory to make an arrest while probing a complaint or an FIR disclosing a cognizable offence.