New Delhi: The Supreme Court has deplored the tendency of police to protect the criminals for extraneous considerations and came down heavily upon a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP)) for shielding three rapists who kidnapped and gang-raped a minor.
The DSP fabricated a document, purportedly a "panchayat nama" (decision), to claim that the victim had consensual sex with one of the accused and that there was no rape.
"The sequence of events in clear terms demonstrates the sinister and diabolical role played by the police and in particular by DSP Joginder Singh to sabotage the entire prosecution in order to protect the accused for obvious reasons.
"We are neither surprised nor shocked at the conduct of the DSP in as much as such instances are galore in this country where the police, instead of protecting the law, take the law into their own hands for extraneous considerations," a Bench of Justices B Sudershan Reddy and J M Panchal said in a judgement.
The apex court passed the judgement while dismissing the appeal of three rapists Jaswanth Singh and two others, who kidnapped the minor girl from her house and gang-raped her in Punjab's Talwani Rai village on June 26, 1989.
Though the victims' family lodged a complaint, police allegedly refused to register a case, upon which they made a written complaint to the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP). On the instructions of the SSP, DSP Joginder Singh initially got an FIR registered but later changed his tack.
It was alleged by the victim that she was tortured in custody and her signatures were obtained in blank papers.
The DSP subsequently produced the so-called Panchayat nama to claim that the victim had consensual sex with one of the accused Kuldip Singh and claimed that in order to cover up the same she had implicated the three accused.
A sessions court convicted and sentenced the trio to 10 years imprisonment and the Punjab and Haryana High Court upheld the conviction, upon which they moved the apex court.
The apex court on perusal of the evidence said it was clear that the so-called document in the form of Panchayat nama was false. It noted that the evidence on record indicated that the victim was subjected to torture by police and there appeared to be some substance that the victims signatures were taken forcibly on a blank paper.
It further rejected the argument of the accused that they were falsely implicated as there was a dispute between their families and that of the victim over a boundary wall.
It said that the alleged dispute was not of such a grave nature, compelling the family of the victim to jeopardise the reputation of a young girl to settle scores with the accused.
Bureau Report
First Published: Sunday, November 08, 2009, 16:29