With great power comes great responsibility, Supreme Court’s Spiderman moment with Police

In a judgment delivered yesterday, the Supreme Court reminded the Police Forces across the country that the concept of “democratic policing” needs to be developed and recognized by it..Crime control is not the only end, but the means to achieve the same is also important, the Court observed, stating,.“Be you ever so high, the law is always above you!”.The Bench of Justices NV Ramana and Mohan M Shantanagoudar delivered this judgment in a criminal appeal filed in relation to the conviction of ten police officers from the State of Maharashtra. This judgment authored by Justice NV Ramana interestingly opens with a quote from the movie Spiderman:.“With great power comes greater responsibility.”.Factual Background.The case concerns conviction of ten Police officers from Maharashtra under Section 330, 354, 355 and 342 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The jail term under each of these Sections was to run concurrently and effectively the punishment was a sentence of three years rigorous imprisonment and a fine Rs 500. The accused were acquitted under the charge of murder..These ten men together were a patrolling party that was informally informed by three persons of an instance of loot some days ago. There was no official complaint regarding this loot. On some tip-off regarding a suspect in this looting, the accused party raided the house of the victim. Although the victim did not match with the information in the tip-off, he was still a known suspect in another unconnected robbery..Upon raiding his house in the dead of the night, the victim was found to be sleeping after having had his dinner and some alcohol. Some of the accused allegedly molested the victim’s wife and later the accused party took the victim into their custody and subjected him to incessant beating. The victim was put in the lockup for the rest of the night and was found to be motionless the next morning..Conviction in the Trial Court and subsequent appeals.The Trial Court reasoned, among other things, that the injuries sustained by the victim were not sufficient to cause death and that the injuries were caused by the Police officers to extract information in an investigation and, therefore, fall under the ambit of Section 330 of the IPC..This Trial Court judgment was challenged by the accused. Simultaneously, the State of Maharashtra also appealed against the acquittal of the accused under Section 302 praying for their sentence to be enhanced..The Bombay High Court, Nagpur Bench dismissed the appeal filed by the State of Maharashtra and partly allowed the appeal of the accused by acquitting them of charges under Sections 354, 355 and 342 read with Section 34. Their conviction under Section 330 of the IPC was, however, upheld..Aggrieved by the High Court judgment, the convicts as well as the State of Maharashtra, approached the Supreme Court. The convicts were represented by Senior Counsel R Basant and Advocate S Nagamuthu while Advocate Nishant Katneshwarkar appeared for the State of Maharashtra and pressed for custodial torture to be punished appropriately..Questions before the Supreme Court and the verdict.The Court said that there were four questions for consideration before it..While considering the question of whether or not the incident amounts to murder under Section 302, the Court first considered whether the incident amounts to culpable homicide or not. The Court found the absence of causal relationship between the injuries and the death and ruled out murder, in line with the decision of the courts below..Another question dealt with by the Court was whether the ‘Nuremburg defence’ pleaded by the accused will be valid. Accused number 1 who was in charge that night, passed away during the pendency of the case and the case against him stood abated. Therefore the remaining nine accused pleaded the ‘defence of the superior’ claiming that they were merely following Accused 1’s orders..The Court found that this defence was not taken originally but was a subsequent development and therefore it cannot be said that the accused were not aware of the facts and circumstances. The Court, in this regard, ruled,.“…this argument is taken only before this court, to seek a re-trial and such attempt cannot be taken into consideration herein.”.The third question before the Court was in relation to the acquittal of accused no. 10 by the lower Courts on account of him not being present with the patrol party throughout but only for some parts of the investigation. Since this fact was proved sufficiently, the Court found no reason to disturb the findings of the lower courts..And, finally, the fourth question concerned the punishment under Section 330 of the IPC. In this regard, the Court said that it has no reason to interfere with the conviction but the quantum of sentence is the question before it..The Court made it clear that the manner in which the victim and his family were taken into custody “does not befit the conduct of the police.” .“The manner in which the deceased and his family members were taken into custody reflects pure act of lawlessness and does not befit the conduct of the Police… The factual narration of the events portrayed herein narrate a spiteful events of police excessiveness. The motive to falsely implicate Joinus (victim) for a crime he was alien to was not befitting the police officers investigating crimes.”.The Court noted that the Police, who are supposed to be the protectors of the law was indeed the violators of the law in this case. Hence, the punishment needs to be stringent and proportionate to their actions in order to have a deterrent effect..“The manner in which Joinus (victim) was taken during late night from his house for investigation ignores the basic rights this country has guaranteed its citizen… .…the police in this case are the violators of law, who had the primary responsibility to protect and uphold law.”.Reminding the Police that such incidents diminish the confidence of the citizenry in them and that they have a duty towards the society at large to protect and uphold the law, the Court observed,.“Such incidents involving police usually tend to deplete the confidence in our criminal justice system much more than those incidents involving private individuals. We must additionally factor this aspect while imposing an appropriate punishment to the accused herein.”.The Court, therefore, said that an imprisonment of three years was “grossly insufficient” and enhanced the term to the maximum sentence prescribed under Section 330 and fixed it at 7 years rigorous imprisonment..Read Judgment: