It has been 20 days since 38-year-old Manjula Shette was allegedly murdered inside Byculla prison by jail officials, but the State is yet to set up a magisterial inquiry into the incident. This despite the fact that the Bombay High Court recently questioned why the State waited for an inmate’s statement to file an FIR, and why the FIR was not registered promptly.
Talking to The Hindu, Additional Director-General (Prisons) B.K. Upadhyay said, “A magisterial inquiry in such cases is mandatory, and we have sent our report to the collector. The collector will order an inquiry.”
But Mumbai Collector Sampada Mehta has no knowledge about the report. “I have not received the report. No report has come to me. There are other executive magistrates under me; they could have sent the report. I do not know if the district magistrate has to send it. But if I have to send it, I have not received the report. I do not know if other executive magistrates have received it or if my office has received it.”
The Code of the Criminal Procedure is clear; Section 176 1 (A) says that if “a death of any person occurs while in custody, the Officer In-charge of the concerned police station or the concerned Jail, as the case may be, shall forthwith furnish information in the prescribed form to the learned Magistrate having jurisdiction to hold an enquiry”.
Experts question delay
Legal experts, too, have questioned the delay in setting up an inquiry within 24 hours.
Retired judge B.N. Srikrishna said, “The whole idea of setting up the inquiry within 24 hours is that the incident is fresh, and so you can immediately look at the evidence and the witnesses. The longer you take, the collection of evidence becomes difficult.”
Justice Srikrishna went on to add that an officer in-charge can be held responsible for not setting up the inquiry, as he is guilty of dereliction of duty. The High Court can direct him to constitute the probe, he said.
Retired judge Sujata Manohar said, “This is a very serious case, where the person in charge of enforcing the law is accused of breaking it. Any delay in having an enquiry and you lose out on a lot of evidence. Therefore, you have to stick to the time allotted in law. The delay will mean that all the witnesses have to be protected because they are inside the jail.”
Emphasising the importance of magisterial inquiries in cases like these, on October 18, 2016, a Division Bench of Justices Abhay Oka and A.A. Sayed had directed the Registrar General of the High Court to issue a circular drawing attention of Judicial Magistrates First Class and Metropolitan Magistrates to the provisions of 176 1(A).
Shette’s death on June 23 had sparked a riot inside Byculla jail. Six prison guards were subsequently arrested.