Supreme Court orders Rs 6 lakh compensation for six-year undertrial custody

The Supreme Court ordered Uttar Pradesh to pay Rs 6 lakh to an acquitted undertrial. The ruling condemned a slipshod police investigation that cost him six years of liberty.

The Supreme Court on Monday criticised the Uttar Pradesh Police for a "slipshod investigation" in a murder case and directed the state government to pay Rs 6 lakh as reparation to a man who spent six years in custody as an undertrial, news agency Press Trust of India reported.

Calling the man a "victim of the system", the court said six years of his life had been erased because of a "concocted story" based on assumptions and conjecture.

"The state cannot shirk from its responsibility to protect its citizens, especially when a person arraigned in a criminal case is presumed innocent until proven guilty," a bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran said.

The bench said investigating and prosecuting agencies do not exist merely to secure a conviction by any means. "They should recognise themselves to be essential stakeholders in the justice delivery system, ensuring justice, not only to the victim, the de facto complainant and the injured, but also to the accused," it said.

"We come across such travesty of justice in many matters, but in some, so blatant and shocking, as in this case, which requires reparation to the accused, who in turn is a victim of the system," the court said.

According to PTI, the verdict came on a petition filed by the accused challenging a January order of the Allahabad High Court that denied him bail in a case registered in Agra in 2019.

The Supreme Court noted that it had directed the trial court on March 23 to complete the trial within three months. The trial was subsequently concluded and the petitioner was acquitted.

"This is a classic case of how an investigation should not be proceeded with, resulting in the prosecution putting into jeopardy a person's life and liberty," the bench said. It noted that the petitioner had been in jail since November 14, 2019.

The court said it was unfortunate that the petitioner had remained imprisoned for six years as an undertrial despite the absence of evidence against him. "Based on a slipshod investigation, a haphazard prosecution was carried out, which resulted, fortunately in the acquittal of the accused. We cannot but deprecate the manner in which the investigation was carried out and the prosecution was conducted," it said.

The bench noted that the trial court had acquitted the man after finding that the prosecution had failed to prove any of the four circumstances it relied upon, including electronic evidence.

"We spent our valuable time going through the judgment only to caution the state as to the manner in which investigations are carried out. The state police would do well to educate their officers in the process of investigation," the bench said.

The court directed that a copy of its verdict be sent to the Uttar Pradesh director general of police and home secretary. "We, hence, direct the state to pay an amount of Rs 6 lakh; though paltry in comparison to the years spent in custody, within a period of one month to the petitioner herein," it said while disposing of the petition.

The ruling concluded the man's petition after his acquittal, with the Supreme Court ordering the Uttar Pradesh government to compensate him within a month and cautioning the state over the conduct of the investigation and prosecution.