Neeraj Grover was a media executive. Maria Monica Susairaj was a Kannada actress who wanted to work in the TV industry. When she moved to Mumbai, Maria befriended Grover and they soon entered into an intimate relationship. However, Maria started having doubts about whether Grover was serious about aiding her career. The prosecution alleged that the plan to kill Grover was hatched on 6 May 2008, when Maria contacted Emile Jerome Joseph, her fiancé. On 7 May 2008, both Maria and Joseph killed Grover and chopped up his body. Later, Maria confessed to her crimes and led the police to the place where the body parts were burned. She also stated that Joseph had forced her to commit the act with him with the threat of rape. Later, the confessional statement was retracted by Maria. According to the Court’s analysis of Maria’s confession, it was concluded that only Joseph was responsible for the murder of the victim.
After considering the evidence, the Court held the accused guilty of both causing disappearance and destruction of evidence. The prosecution proved that Joseph killed the victim but the defendant pleaded the first exception to murder, i.e., culpable homicide due to the grave and sudden provocation. The Court ruled out premeditation on the part of Joseph and maintained that he was under provocation. Both of the accused were charged under Section 201 for causing the disappearance of evidence, with a maximum penalty of three years. Joseph was charged under Section 304 (1) of the IPC for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and was given ten years’ rigorous imprisonment as well as a fine of Rs 50,000. Maria was convicted under Section 201 of the IPC for the destruction of evidence and was given three years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000. Joseph was also convicted under the same offence and given the same punishment, for which his sentence would run concurrently.
D.K. Basu and custodial deaths
Shri D.K. Basu, Ashok K. Johri v. State of West Bengal, State Of U.P. (1996) was a landmark judgement that elaborated on custodial deaths. The initial party to the case was West Bengal and D.K. Basu. D.K. Basu was the Executive Chairman of Legal Aid Services of West Bengal. Basu wrote a letter to the Chief Justice of India enumerating certain news articles in newspapers that have spoken about custodial deaths and instances of custodial torture. The letter emphasized the need to draw up guidelines that an arresting authority must follow while remanding a person to custody and to draw up victim compensation schemes in those scenarios of custodial death and torture. Because the issue that was mentioned in the letter was of gravity, the letter was considered to be a writ petition and accordingly proceedings were initiated. Later, Shri Ashok K. Johri wrote a similar letter to the Chief Justice about a custodial death in Uttar Pradesh and accordingly that letter was also considered to be a writ petition and the two were clubbed together. The state governments in their reply stated that custodial deaths were taken into consideration and appropriate actions were taken against the concerned individual. Further, the Supreme Court solicited the Law Commission to deliver an official report on this issue and accordingly the 113th report on “Injuries in Police Custody” was released.
In the judgement, the Supreme Court reiterated that any type of torture or cruel, inhuman, or humiliating treatment, whether it occurs during an investigation, interrogation, or otherwise, is covered by Article 21. The rights protected by Article 21 cannot be denied to undertrials, convicts, detainees, and other detainees in custody unless they are refused in accordance with the method established by law, which may include reasonable restrictions on the right.
The primary achievement of this judgement was that the Court gave out certain specific guidelines that had to be followed while making arrests. These included the need for arresting or interrogating officers to bear accurate, visible and clear identification and name tags with their designations and allowing one relative of the arrested person to be informed about the arrest and place of detention.
