Delhi Court seeks police reply on suspended CISF officer's plea alleging custodial torture

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has sought an action taken report (ATR) from the police on a plea filed by a suspended CISF commandant seeking registration of an FIR against two inspectors and an IAS officer for his alleged custodial torture in 2019.

Metropolitan Magistrate Siddhant Sihag passed the order on the plea made by Ranjan Pratap Singh, who claimed that despite his complaint to the Delhi Police on October 20, 2021, no action has been taken so far.

The judge, in an order dated December 1, directed the Delhi Police to file its response and kept the matter for December 15.

In the plea, Singh alleged that he was subjected to third-degree custodial torture at Lodhi Colony Police Station for three days in October 2019.

He was arrested for allegedly planting drugs in the car of an IAS officer's husband and falsely implicating him.

He claimed that the IAS officer, who was known to him, deceitfully induced him to go to the police station past midnight with an intent to get him wrongfully confined and tortured in police custody for obtaining a desired confession and using it to save her husband.

In the police custody, Singh alleged that few police personnel used “well-known third-degree beastly police methods” and hit him hard repeatedly with hands, "lathi" [stick] as well as with “pata” [belt] on instructions of two inspectors.

The suspended officer further claimed that when he almost lost his senses, the two inspectors also coerced him to sign on blank sheets as well as a few papers without letting him have a look at its content.

“Complainant was brutally tortured in the Lodhi Colony Police Station, not only that night but for next two days and nights also, and the same stands clearly proved by the Medico Legal Case (MLC) reports of AIIMS clearly mentioning – 'external injury found',” he stated in the plea.

Singh claimed that he obtained non-certified copies of the MLC reports with great difficulty after applications filed under the RTI Act 2005 with AIIMS, Delhi, as well as the Delhi Police, went in vain.

Singh, in the plea filed through advocate Kushal Kumar, Akashdeep Gupta, and Akansha Gulati, also claimed that the police also tried to hide the MLC reports from the Special Judge (NDPS).

He has sought direction from the court to the SHO of the Lodhi Colony Police Station to register FIR against the two inspectors and the IAS officer, who is currently posted in Rajasthan.