Orissa High Court

Cuttack, April 2: Orissa High Court has admitted a petition filed by a 62-year-old mother seeking a CBI probe into the death of her son in police custody and compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the death.

Nakula Kumar Dehuri had died while he was a detainee in the cell of Chamakhandi police station in Ganjam in the intervening night of February 28 and March 1. Police had claimed that he had committed suicide.

But Nakula’s mother Ritima Dehuri of Kankanamendhi in Daspala area of Nayagarh had filed the petition alleging that her son had died in police custody “as a result of custodial torture”.

“Acting on the petition, the two-judge bench of Chief Justice V.Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra have issued notices to the state government,” petitioner counsel Mruganga Patnaik told The Telegraph today.

“The state government has been directed to give a reply within two weeks,” he said.

Police had claimed that Nakula’s body was noticed hanging with a blanket from an iron rod of the window of his cell at 8.30am on March 1. He was taken to the Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati Medical College and Hospital in Berhampur where he succumbed at 11.10am.

Nakula’s mother said: “The police personnel did not prepare a memo of arrest and did not inform any of his friends or relatives about the marriage. The police even did not notify the time and place of arrest and the venue of custody of her son.”

According to the petition, the provision under Section 176(1-A) of the Criminal Procedure Code prescribes an inquiry by a judicial magistrate in addition to the inquiry or investigation held by the police when any person dies or disappears while such person is in the custody of police or in any other custody authorised by the magistrate or the court.

“But in this case, no such inquiry was held by any judicial magistrate,” the petition alleged, while seeking a CBI probe into the incident. Admittedly, Nakula was not produced before any magistrate,” the petition contended.

Seeking compensation of Rs 10 lakh her son’s custodial death, Ritima Dehuri, who is a widow, said that her son was “an able bodied young man and an earning person” who looked after her and other members of the family. The death of her son is an “irreparable loss to the family”, she said.