Custodial violence rarely results from the acts of a single individual. More often than not, it is enabled by successive institutional failures. Unless accountability is ensured at every level, the prosecution of a few individuals alone would neither address the root cause nor prevent the recurrence of such tragic incidents, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has said.
Justice B. Pugalendhi made the observation while dismissing the applications filed by the four police personnel convicted in the case pertaining to the 2019 custodial torture and death of a 17-year-old boy in the hands of the S.S. Colony police in Madurai.
The convicts, the then Inspector S. Alexraj, then Special Sub-Inspector R. Ravichandran, then head constable S. Ravichandran, and then Grade I constable C. Satheeshkumar had sought suspension of the sentence awarded to them by the trial court pending disposal of the appeal filed against the trial court judgment. The Fifth Additional District and Sessions Court in Madurai in 2025 sentenced the four police personnel to a total of 11 years’ rigorous imprisonment.
The court said a 17-year-old juvenile was done to death. His death was not natural. The post-mortem conducted after exhumation revealed as many as 25 ante-mortem injuries on his body. He appears to have died due to the custodial torture inflicted on him during police custody.
The evidence on record disclose serious systemic and institutional lapses which cannot escape judicial notice, particularly when the victim was a child. The case reflects not merely isolated lapses on the part of individual officers but a serious institutional failure at multiple levels, the court said.
The evidence brought on record discloses prima facie dereliction of statutory duties on the part of several functionaries. The gravest threat to the rule of law was not merely dereliction of duty and abuse of power, but it was the belief that such acts would have no consequences. It was for the institutional heads concerned to examine the conduct of the officials concerned, fix responsibility in accordance with law and initiate such departmental or other proceedings as may be warranted, the court said.
In 2019, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court had ordered the CB-CID to investigate the custodial torture and resultant death of 17-year-old Muthu Karthik. The boy was picked up by the S.S. Colony police for an inquiry into an alleged jewellery theft, kept in illegal custody for three days, and subjected to torture. He died of injuries at the Government Rajaji Hospital, where he was being treated. The court had observed that the police, the GRH, and the Juvenile Justice Board had not acted fairly in the case, while ordering a CB-CID probe.
