NHRC summons chief secy in custodial death

Mar 01, 2013 |

Age Correspondent

mumbai

Chief secretary of state Jayantkumar Banthia has been summoned to appear before the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for a custodial death of a woman at Goregaon (east) police station on April 2, 2010.
The chief secretary is to appear personally at 3 pm on March 13, 2013, along with the requisite report, as he had failed to comply with previous conditional summons by the NHRC. Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), that filed a complaint with NHRC on April 5, 2010 in this regard, has welcomed the order.
The deceased, Swapna Salvi, a resident of Gujarat, was arrested by the Ahmedabad police on March 30, 2010 in connection with a cheating case. She was handed over to the Mumbai police who produced her before the court that remanded her to police custody till April 5, 2010. She was in custody of Goregaon (east) police station and was found hanging from the ceiling fan in the ladies room of the police station.
The police claimed that the deceased committed suicide by using her dupatta, when a female constable keeping an eye on her stepped out of the room. Acting on the complaint NHRC asked the chief secretary to remain personally present before the commission on February 7, 2013, but he failed to do so. His personal appearance was also to be dispensed with in case the report was received by the commission on or before January 31, 2013. Neither was the report received nor did the chief secretary appear before the commission.
Reacting to the issue, the chief secretary said, “I have learnt that the concerned home department has taken due cognisance in this case. The court has ordered a compensation of `1 lakh to the next of kin of the deceased, which has now been sanctioned and will be handed over to the family.” Commenting on the summons, he said that he would explain to the commission about the action taken by the government and submit his report.
Suhas Chakma, director of ACHR said, “This is a clear contempt of the NHRC and a fit case for summoning the chief secretary of Maharashtra. The conduct of the chief secretary shows the lack of concern for the protection of women.”

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/224170" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b26544e095640df56c735c829480808f" value="form-b26544e095640df56c735c829480808f" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="84158899" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>