First Principles IAS · Current affairs

Everything filed · Internal Security › Police and criminal justice › Custodial violence and accountability

Printed on · firstprinciplesias.com/current-affairs

Internal Security › Police and criminal justice

Custodial violence and accountability

Deaths and torture in police and judicial custody, the safeguards the law sets, and how officers are held to account.

Asked before

Prelims 2026: 'X' was addressing a seminar on the meaning of the term 'law' as provided under Article 13, Part III of the Constitution of India. 'X' ex…
Prelims 2026: Which of the following statements about a Zero First Information Report (Zero FIR) under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2…
Prelims 2025: Consider the following pairs : Provision in the Constitution of India : Stated under. I. Separation of Judiciary from the Executive in th…
Mains 2025 GS4: It is said that for an ethical work culture, there must be code of ethics in place in every organisation. To ensure value-based and compl…
Mains 2025 GS4: India is an emerging economic power of the world as it has recently secured the status of fourth largest economy of the world as per IMF…
Prelims 2024: Under which of the following Articles of the Constitution of India, has the Supreme Court of India placed the Right to Privacy?
Prelims 2024: A Writ of Prohibition is an order issued by the Supreme Court or High Courts to:
Mains 2024 GS4: The 'Code of Conduct' and 'Code of Ethics' are the sources of guidance in public administration. There is code of conduct already in oper…

StandardPrelims and Mains12 Aug 2026

A custodial death is a death in police or judicial custody, from any cause, and the State answers for every one because a person in custody cannot protect himself. D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997) laid down eleven requirements for arrest and detention, from the arrest memo to the medical examination, and made their breach contempt of court.
The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 writes much of this into statute: Section 47 (grounds of arrest), Section 48 (the person to be informed), Section 53 (medical examination on arrest), Section 58 (production before a magistrate within 24 hours) and Section 196 (a judicial magistrate's inquiry into every death in custody, in addition to the police inquiry).
The National Human Rights Commission must be told of every custodial death within 24 hours under its guidelines, and recommends compensation; its recommendations are not binding.
Parliament was told in March 2026 that custodial deaths reported to the Commission numbered 176 in 2021-22, 163 in 2022-23, 157 in 2023-24 and 140 in 2024-25, and 170 in the first 74 days of 2026, with Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh reporting the most.

On 12 August 2026, in Lahra Bai Tamre v. State of Chhattisgarh, the Supreme Court transferred the investigation of a death in custody to the Central Bureau of Investigation and ordered ₹25 lakh as interim compensation to the family, against the ₹1 lakh the High Court had given.
The man, a shopkeeper arrested on 18 January 2024 over liquor worth ₹1,200, died three days later. A judicial magistrate's inquiry found in July 2024 that he died of a blunt weapon head injury, yet the police registered no first information report until 30 July 2026, and the State's police chief told the Court the inquiry report had never reached the police, though it was annexed to the State's own affidavit in the High Court.
The Court said the claimed ignorance was unacceptable, called the delay an attempt to cover up custodial violence, and told the Bureau to examine the officials who sat on the report.

The case shows the safeguards working on paper and failing in practice: the magistrate's inquiry was held and found violence, and nothing followed for two years until the Court intervened. The weak link is not the inquiry but what the police do with it.
Custody in parts under Section 187, which the Court allowed the same week, widens the window in which a person can be sent back to the police; the magistrate's scrutiny of each remand is the safeguard the Court is relying on.
Compensation under Article 32, from Nilabati Behera (1993) onwards, is the one remedy that has grown; prosecution of the officers remains rare, and no law yet makes custodial torture a distinct offence, as the Prevention of Torture Bill of 2010 proposed.

Prelims: D.K. Basu (1997), eleven requirements; Sections 47, 48, 53, 58 and 196 of the BNSS; the 24 hour reporting rule to the NHRC; Nilabati Behera (1993) on compensation under Article 32.
Mains: why custodial violence persists despite the safeguards, and what institutional change, a torture law, independent investigation, body cameras, would address it.

Show the questions

Prelims 2021: With reference to India, consider the following statements: 1. Judicial custody means an accused is in the custody of the concerned magistrate and such accused is locked up in police station, not in jail. 2. During judicial custody, the police officer in charge of the case is not allowed to interrogate the suspect without the approval of the court. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Mains 2021 GS2: Though the Human Rights Commissions have contributed immensely to the protection of human rights in India, yet they have failed to assert themselves against the mighty and powerful. Analyzing their structural and practical limitations, suggest remedial measures.

Sources

LiveLaw, August 2026, “Supreme Court orders CBI probe into Chhattisgarh custodial death, grants ₹25 lakh compensation to kin”
LiveLaw, August 2026
Maktoob Media, 25 March 2026, “170 custodial deaths reported in first 74 days of 2026, Union govt tells Parliament”

Settled facts (dates of Acts, constitutional provisions, standing definitions) are from standard references.