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Nine months after five people were taken to the Gujarat High Court alleging unlawful detention and public flogging in Kheda by police personnel and seeking contempt proceedings against them, the High Commission on Wednesday deemed the contempt application serviceable. It ordered the Chief Justice of Khedda (Nadi) to verify the video and photo evidence and report to the court within three weeks.
The High Commissioner noted that “it cannot remain a silent spectator of an act of contempt and refuse to take any action”.
The five petitioners alleged that 13 police officers were complicit in their public whipping and recording and sharing of the same videos that went viral on social media.
The petitioners, represented by Chief Advocate IH Syed, have claimed that the action of the police personnel was degrading and in flagrant violation of the Supreme Court’s guidelines for arrest and detention in its rulings in the cases of DK Basu and Arnesh Kumar.
The police personnel claimed that the order could not be maintained for several reasons. One reason was that the guidelines drawn up by the Standing Committee “no longer existed after the inclusion of provisions in Chapter 5 of the Environmental Protection Act”. In this regard, the Chief Justice’s Chamber AS Supehia and Justice MR Mengedey on Wednesday held that the dispute was “not worthy of admission,” as “the directives given by the Supreme Court until today remain in their true and authentic form… Hence, any deviations or Violation of these directives or guidelines would certainly result in the observations in paragraph 37 in the case of DK Basu…”
The accused also said that the contempt action should not be admissible because the proceedings under section 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure are pending and any observations made by this court would directly affect those proceedings. The High Commissioner’s Committee also rejected this claim, stating that the Supreme Court’s actions and procedures under Section 202 of the Refugee Protection Act “operate in different areas.”
“These proceedings arise from the alleged violation of directives issued in DK Basu and Arnesh Kumar. The proceedings under section 202 of the Criminal Procedure Act will take their own course and the accused or defendant (police personnel) will be tried before the competent court. We cannot overturn or invalidate the existing proceedings only Because the competent court is examining the accused’s complicity under the provisions of Article 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and such a dispute does not deserve acceptance,” the court noted.
The accused also contested the possibility of maintaining the motion on the grounds that he had not sought to invoke the court’s powers under Article 215 of the Constitution. Accordingly, the High Commission based on the report filed by Range IG Ahmedabad under Section 202 of CrPC which revealed that six police personnel can be seen in the videos of the incident – Inspector AV Parmar, Armed Soldiers Kanaksinh Lakshmansinh, Arjunsinh Fatehsinh, and Rajendrasinh Rameshbhai. as well as the unarmed head constables Maheshbhai Vashrambhai and Vishnubhai Harjibhai.
The Court noted that “the exercise of the powers inherent in the High Commissioner under section 215 to sanction contempt cannot depend on the mere mention of the provision in the application”.
“It is not that the HC can only exercise this power when the proceedings mention the article. If the HC finds that there has been contempt committed, being a Court of Record, the HC can exercise its inherent powers to punish the person who has committed the contempt and the HC cannot remain a silent spectator to an act of contempt and refusing to take action only in order not to mention Article 215 of the Constitution (in the contempt application).The High Commissioner does not have to wait until the provisions of Article 215 have been included in the proceedings and when any contempt is observed the court can exercise its inherent powers conferred under Article 215 to punish the objectors ,” the court noted.
The High Commissioner noted that the Nadi-Kheda SB affidavit before the High Commission and the Ahmedabad Group report “reveal that an incident occurred and that some of the officers there who are also defendants in the present proceedings were involved in mob control”. He also noted that the Range IG report “reveals apparent complicity of six of these defendants but the same is silent regarding the other respondents”, and that the report “also does not in any way reflect the role of each of the (13 accused police personnel) “. Thus, the court held that the contempt petition “cannot be dismissed at this stage without verification of the real facts.”
The Court emphasized that the provisions of the Evidence Act did not apply strictly under the Contempt of Court Act and that the petitioners did not allege that each of the 13 accused policemen had a specific role and complicity in the public floggings, and had primarily relied on videos and photographs of the floggings. Hence the court ruled that “it is appropriate that the appropriate report be called after an investigation so that the exact complicity of each of the defendants and the photographs can be ascertained”.
The court directed the Chief Justice of Khadda (Nadi) to “verify the contents of the video as well as the complicity” of each of the 13 defendants by verifying the contents of the pen drive and the photos.
The court also ordered the Registrar General to send the pen and photo book in a sealed cover to the Magistrates’ Court and ordered the accused to remain present before the judge “when summoned.” The petitioners were also given the freedom to remain present before the investigating judge.
The High Commissioner will hear the order next on August 11th.
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