The dangers of instant justice by the police
The Commission of Inquiry to examine the 2019 Hyderabad gang rape and the encounter that followed was right in concluding that police encounters are wrong
The official version of the infamous Hyderabad encounter — in which four accused, who were arrested in connection with the rape and murder of a young veterinary lady doctor, were killed by the police in 2019 — has been trashed by the Justice Sirpurkar Commission of Inquiry.
It may be recalled that on the evening of November 27, the woman left her home for a clinic in Gachibowli. At 9:22 pm, she called her younger sister, saying that the rear tyre of her scooty had punctured, and she had been offered a lift by some workers.
However, she expressed apprehension at being alone amid men who looked suspicious. Soon after, the call snapped and the phone was switched off. On November 28, information was received that a woman’s dead body was burning in the underpass near Chatanpally village. It was identified by the girl’s parents. Then, a case on crime number 784 of 2019 was registered at Shadnagar police station under sections 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). There was huge public outrage and anger over the incident.
On November 29, commissioner of police, Cyberabad, announced that four persons — Mohammad Arif, Jollu Shiva, Jollu Naveen, and Chintakunta — were arrested in connection with the woman’s rape and murder. On November 30, the accused were produced before the executive magistrate, who remanded them to judicial custody for 13 days. On December 6, it was reported that all four suspects were killed when they attacked the police party that had taken them to Chatanpally to reconstruct the scene of the crime and recover the articles of the deceased. It was alleged that the accused snatched firearms from the police and opened fire on them and were subsequently killed in the exchange of fire.
A commission of inquiry was constituted by the Supreme Court to examine the circumstances leading to the encounter, and to ascertain if any offence was committed in the process. It was headed by justice VS Sirpurkar, and included justice Rekha P Sondur Baldota, and DR Kaarthikeyan, a former police officer, as members. The Commission came to the conclusion that the “entire version of the police party from the safehouse to the incident at Chatanpally, is concocted”, and that “it was impossible for the deceased suspects to have snatched the weapons of the police and they could not have operated the firearms.” It deplored that the video footage of the incident produced before the commission is “not in seriatim and are very short clippings that appear to be sourced from primary footage.” The Commission stated that “there seems to have been a deliberate attempt to suppress the truth from emerging”. Its opinion was that “the accused were deliberately fired upon with an intent to cause their death and with the knowledge that firing would invariably result in the death of the suspects”. It directed that all 10 police officers be tried for murder and destruction of evidence in furtherance of common intention, and clarified that the accused could not take shelter under the exception of private defence. The Commission also criticised the judicial magistrate for serious violations of the law insofar as he gave remand without perusing any documents and without insisting on the production of the suspects.
It is interesting to recall that soon after the incident, the local police officers were feted by several groups of people and there were statements from responsible quarters endorsing the police’s action. My experience is that the police go overboard and dispense instant justice only when it is under political pressure to produce results within a short time. At the very start of my police career, I saw a state home minister going from district to district in Uttar Pradesh and holding sessions with officers to prepare lists of persons who were to be dispatched.
Investigations are normally a painstaking job and it takes time to connect all the dots before submitting the charge sheet. It is disappointing that the Commission did not comment on the role of the political leadership or the role of the local administration, particularly the senior police officers. It is easy to punish the lower functionaries, but unless accountability is fixed at the level the vigilante action originates from, such incidents will continue to happen.
False encounters are a crime, but it has to be remembered that they also signify the collapse of the criminal justice system. People are not confident that rapists will be punished. The facts of the 2012 Delhi gang-rape were known to everyone and yet the fast track court, with all the public attention focused on its proceedings, took more than six years to sentence the accused, and even after that, they kept on dodging the gallows by some legal jugglery or the other.
The National Crime Record Bureau data for 2020 in respect of the crime of murder with rape or gang-rape of women shows a pendency of 48.8 % with the police and 96.9% with the courts. These figures speak for themselves. Long-drawn-out trials sap the energy of any complainant. It took 40 years to convict the killers of LN Misra, the then railway minister. Justice with so much delay is not justice denied — it is injustice.
The Commission summed up its findings when it said, “Just as mob lynching is unacceptable, so is any idea of instant justice” and that “at any point of time, rule of law must prevail”. But society, including judges, needs to introspect as to why false encounters take place.
People are losing faith in the criminal justice system. The pendency of cases across the country is about 47 million today, and the graph continues to go up every passing year. Unless we improve the functioning of the police and the prosecution and ensure timely delivery of justice, the pressure, if not the temptation, to dispense instant justice will always be there at some level, in some quarter.