NHRC awards Rs. 3.00 lakh compensation to victims of police highhandedness in Madhya Pradesh

The National Human Rights Commission has awarded as `immediate interim relief’ u/s 18(3) on the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 to Shri Manoj Kumar Tak and Shri Narendra Kumar Tak who were victims of positive acts of highhandedness by public servants of the Madhya Pradesh Government. The Commission has directed that this amount of compensation is required to be paid by the State of Madhya Pradesh to the victims by 10 July 2001.

The Commission had taken cognizance of a complaint received from one Smt. Anuradha Tak and her husband Manoj Kumar Tak from Jaipur, Rajasthan. Complaints were also received from PUCL, Jaipur, Shri Narendra Kumar Tak, brother of Sri Manoj Kumar Tak and their father. It was alleged that on 6 June 1998, a police party from Gwalior, MP headed by SI, CBS Raghuvanshi had raided the house of the complainants in Jaipur in search of Shri Manoj Tak and had taken away his brother Narendra Tak to Gwalior where he had been illegally detained. It was also alleged that the brothers had been falsely implicated by the SI, u/s 392 IPC, accusing them of the offence of robbery. This was done allegedly at the behest of Shri Sushil Sharma, an Advocate and father of Anuradha Tak, who had not approved of her marriage to Manoj Tak.

Upon the notice issued by the Commission to the Government of Madhya Pradesh, the Additional DGP, Madhya Pradesh had communicated to the Commission on 18 April 2000 that the allegations were being inquired into by CB CID and necessary action would be taken against the delinquent police officers once proven guilty. In the meantime, the Commission had received another complaint from Shri Manoj Tak alleging that after the Commission’s notice to the Government and the delinquent police officer, he and his family members had been receiving threatening phone calls from Shri Sushil Sharma urging them to withdraw the complaint.

The Commission had meanwhile also called for an investigation by a team from its own Investigation Division. The report of the Investigation team established that Manoj and his brother had been falsely implicated possibly due to the reason that Manoj had married the daughter of Sushil Sharma who wielded enough clout to have influenced members of the Gwalior police who had then falsely implicated Shri Manoj Tak and his bother.

Meanwhile, a report from the Additional Director General of Police, Madhya Pradesh was received by the Commission, which informed that the inquiry by the CID had disclosed prima-facie that a conspiracy has been hatched by Shri Sushil Sharma and Shri CBS Raghuvanshi, SI, to falsely implicate the Tak brothers in a grave criminal case. The Government of Madhya Pradesh had thus withdrawn the prosecution of Shri Manoj and Shri Narendra and had registered a criminal case against Shri Raghuvanshi, Shri Sushil Sharma and some others.

The Commission thus felt that the matter needed consideration for recommendation for prosecution of Shri Sharma and Shri Raghuvanshi and recommendation of compensation for the victims, to be paid in the first instance by the State of Madhya Pradesh. The State would be at liberty to recover the same from the persons who by their action had given rise to this vicarious liability of the State. A show-cause notice was given to the Government of Madhya Pradesh in this regard.

The Madhya Pradesh Government however felt that the guilty should be made responsible for the payment of compensation and not the State Government. The Chief Secretary, the Principal Secretary and the Director General of Police, Madhya Pradesh who appeared before the Commission on 25 April 2001 reiterated the stand of the State Government. In these circumstances the Commission had to proceed to consider the recommendations required to be made by it under the statute.

The Commission felt that in the present case, the findings of the CID inquiry which the State Government had duly accepted and rightly did not dispute, were alone sufficient to indicate the existence of a strong prima facie case of violation of human rights of the victims in a manner, which must be condemned. The liability of the State of Madhya Pradesh for payment of immediate interim relief could not be doubted and this liability did not depend upon nor could it be deferred till fixation of liability of an individual public servant. The reason given on behalf of the Madhya Pradesh to oppose this award of relief had no merit. Thus in view of the gross violation of human rights of the victims, the manner in which it was perpetrated, the continuing resistance to thwart Commission’s effort to remedy the wrong, and taking into account all other relevant factors, the Commission felt that the amount of Rs. 3.00 lakh would appropriate as `immediate interim relief’ u/s 18 (3) of the Act.