The Delhi High Court has upheld the sentence of Uttar Pradesh Police personnel who were convicted by the trial court on March 14, 2019 and sentenced to 10 years in a case of death due to torture in police custody. According to the case, the policemen of Noida's Sector 20 police station had picked up a person named Sombir alias Sonu from his house in connection with a robbery. To pick up Sombir alias Sonu from his house, policemen came in plain uniform and private vehicle and picked him up and took him to the police chowki of Nithari village, Sector 31, Noida. On the morning of September 2, 2006, policemen took him to the Sector 20 police station in Noida, where he was put in lock-up. Sombir alias Sonu died in the lock-up of the police station, after which the policemen tried to hush up the matter by saying that Sonu had committed suicide. The police also tried to destroy the evidence which could prove that Sonu died due to police torture in custody. After a lot of noise and pressure, the police of Noida's Sector 20 police station finally had to register a case against the accused policemen. On September 2, 2006, on the complaint of Dalbir Singh, the father of the deceased, an FIR was registered under Section 302 of the IPC at Sector 20 Police Station, Noida. It was alleged in the complaint that on September 1, 2006, at around 6:00 pm, Noida police in civil dress came in a private vehicle and took away his son Sombir from the village .The complainant also alleged that on September 2, he received information from the police station that his son had committed suicide. The complainant said that after this information he reached the post-mortem site along with other people of the village. Where he saw that there were many serious injury marks on Sonu's body. The complainant alleged that the police killed his son by torturing and giving it the color of suicide. The complainant filed a petition in the Supreme Court stating that an unbiased investigation of the case by the Uttar Pradesh Police is not possible as persons from the Uttar Pradesh Police are accused in the case.The complainant demanded that the case be transferred to Delhi for fair investigation and trial. After hearing the petition, the Supreme Court directed the CB-CID to investigate the matter and transfer the trial to the Delhi court. After which the CBCID investigated the matter and filed a charge sheet against the accused policemen in Delhi's Karkardooma Court under sections 304,342, 320, 306, 167, 218, 34 of the IPC. Delhi's Karkardooma Court convicted the accused policemen under IPC section 304 and sentenced the accused policemen Hind Veer Singh, Mahesh Mishra, Pushpendra Kumar, Harpal Singh to 10 years imprisonment. Court sentenced Inspector Kumar Pal Singh to 3 years imprisonment. This decision of the trial court was challenged by the accused in appeal in the High Court. On the other hand, the father of the deceased also filed an appeal seeking conversion of the sentence of the accused to section 302 of the IPC, saying that the accused had committed the offense of murder. A division bench of Justice Mukta Gupta and Justice Anish Dayal while hearing the matter said that The sequence of events and the evidence on record show that the deceased was subjected to custodial torture knowing that it was likely to result in his death. But the accused did not intend to cause death therefore the act of causing bodily injury which was likely to cause death makes the accused guilty of the offense punishable under section 304 of IPC and the convict shall be liable to imprisonment for 10 years. Thus, the appeal filed by the complainant seeking conversion of conviction for offense punishable under section 304 of IPC to section 302 of IPC is not maintainable and the appeal of the complainant is dismissed, the court said. The Division Bench, upholding the judgment of the Trial Court, dismissed both the appeal filed by the convicted policemen and the appeal filed by the complainant.
