Custodial death or death in custody is death of a person in custody of state that may be in police or judicial custody. It is considered as a gross violation of human rights. Human rights are inherent in our nature and without which we can not survive as a human being in the society. These rights are the birth right of all human race and same for all regardless of race, colour, sex , language or religion. There are number of covenant, declarations, optional protocols etc. Are adopted by the United Nation to protect the human rights of each and every individual and also to prevent the gross violation of human rights in different forms. In India there rights prevailed from very ancient age i. e. In 1367 B.C. Bahmani and Vijay Nagar kings entered into an agreement for the humane treatment of the prisoners of war. Custodial death is gross violation of human rights of prisoners. There are number of national and international instruments are created for the protection of human rights of prisoners. Prisoners are those groups who are under the custody or behind the bar. We usually get to know about the cases of custodial violence and death of prisoners. They are even subjected to torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in custody. There might be so many reasons for that one of the reason might be lack of awareness about their own rights. Lack of proper Enforcement machinery of international instruments. Because of which the state parties to the international instruments are not implementing the provisions of international instruments in their municipal laws. We heard about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. They were subjected to Torture, cruel and inhuman treatment to the extend of death.
Beside International documents our Constitution especially guaranteed the rights of prisoners. Apart from Constitution of India Prisoners (Attendance on Courts Act, 1955), Prisoners Act, 1894, the prisoners Act, 1900, Indian Lunacy Act, 1912 also provides important rights and safeguards to the prisoners. Further those laws imposes restrictions on the authority for not to deprive rights of prisoners and prevent the authority from torturing prisoners either physically or mentally. This was further decided in the case of D.K. Basu VS. State of West Bengal.
Inspite of the laws present the statistics are narrating a different story of custodial death in India. According to a report during April 2011-December 2010, 1321 cases of custodial death was reported. Whereas National Crime Record Bureau reported only few cases of custodial death during that Period. Further during the span of 5 years 2007-2012 around 12000 people died in custody. 11820 deaths and 3532 reported case of custodial torture was recorded during that Period. National Human Rights Commission reported that during the span of 10 years 2001-2010, 14231 cases of custodial death was reported. Out of which 1504 deaths caused in police custody and 12727 deaths caused in judicial custody.
The increasing cases of Custodial death are a threat and a dark spot upon the Indian Society. It is one of the worst crime in modern time in civilized society governed by rule of law.From the statistical data it can easily presumed that the laws enacted for the protection of rights of prisoners are not properly implemented because of many reasons. One part is definitely authority and the other part is our lack of proper awareness and conscience about the issues of this kind. So the change is required for both the part.
