New Delhi: When a father and son were arrested from the premises of Delhi’s Karkardooma Courts on 15 January 2018, little did the father imagine that his son would be dead in custody within 25 hours, and eight years later he would be fighting a compensation battle in the Delhi High Court.
The high court, Wednesday, ordered the Delhi government to pay a sum of Rs 18.44 lakh in compensation to Shyam Sundar, the adoptive father of Deepak, who worked as a waiter. Emphasising the sanctity of life, Justice Sachin Datta said a person in custody does not lose their fundamental rights, and an unnatural death in a police station is a matter of “systemic concern, striking at the very foundation of the rule of law”.
“The state cannot escape responsibility by invoking statutory schemes or by contending absence of direct culpability. The very fact of custodial death, being unnatural, attracts liability and obliges the court to mould relief in the form of compensation,” the order read.
After Deepak was arrested for alleged harassment, stalking, criminally intimidation and assault of a minor, the father was released later in the evening of the same day from the Karawal Nagar police station in north-east Delhi.
In his petition for compensation filed before the high court in 2020, the father alleged they were both subjected to “mistreatment, physical assault and threats” in custody. He also said police officials demanded a bribe of Rs 20,000–30,000 for Deepak’s release. Shyam Sundar, being of “indigent means”, expressed inability to arrange the funds.
The next morning, he received a phone call from a local politician informing him that the son he had raised since the age of one had committed suicide in the ‘care’ of the state.
Deepak was declared “brought dead” at Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital on the morning of 16 January. While a magisterial inquiry concluded the cause of death as hanging, the petitioner father pointed to out that two blades were found in the lock-up, and a stole—allegedly used as a ligature— was found, despite the items not being on Deepak when he was searched upon arrest. The petitioner contended these items were “planted to create a facade of suicide”.
The high court order noted that a departmental inquiry into the custody death—conducted by the police department itself and authored by the Deputy Commissioner of Police (North-East District, Delhi) on September 26, 2018—laid out a string of professional failures by the police at the Karawal Nagar police station.
According to the departmental inquiry, reproduced in the high court order, SI Sandeep “failed to perform his duty” by not ensuring that Deepak underwent a mandatory medical examination and by failing to lodge him in the proper lock-up at the Khajuri Khas station.
Furthermore, multiple duty officers were found to have shown “carelessness in the discharge of their official duties” during the intervening night of the tragedy—the internal police departmental order noted.
The price of a life
In his ruling, Justice Datta delivered a stinging rebuke of custodial violence, noting it as a “naked violation of human dignity and degradation that destroys self-esteem”. The court held that when the state deprives a citizen of their liberty, it assumes a “heightened duty of care”.
The judgment made it clear that the state cannot hide behind statutory schemes to avoid its responsibilities. “The state, as custodian of life and liberty, is bound to compensate the next of kin for the infringement of fundamental rights under Article 21,” the court declared, adding that custodial deaths are an “affront to human dignity”.
Rejecting the state’s argument that compensation is not an “automatic consequence” of custodial death, the court applied the multiplier principle to determine a fair recompense, observing that measures of compensation must reflect a genuine attempt “to restore the dignity of the being”.
Based on the Delhi Victim Compensation Scheme, 2018—the final sum of Rs 18,44,400 decided by the court includes loss of dependency, funeral expenses and loss of estate. In the court’s words, the objective of such a monetary award is to “apply balm to the wounds” of a grieving father who lost his son to the very system meant to uphold justice. The Delhi government has been directed to pay the full amount within eight weeks.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)