Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Monday, July 20, directed the state government to produce closed circuit television (CCTV) footage from a women’s prison in Narsampet in Warangal in connection with the alleged custodial death of a 30-year-old undertrial woman.
Justice T Madhavi Devi passed the direction while hearing a petition filed by the brother of Pendyala Sucharitha, seeking a fair and effective police investigation into her death while she was lodged at the Special Prison for Women in Narsampet.
What the petition alleges
Senior advocate V Raghunath, appearing for the petitioner, told the High Court that Sucharitha had been subjected to torture and inhuman treatment by prison officials despite repeatedly complaining of ill health, and that she was assaulted inside the prison in a manner that ultimately led to her death.
He also pointed the court to the postmortem report, which noted an injury on the deceased’s scalp.
The government pleader for the Home Department told the court that a charge memo (a formal notice listing the allegations) had already been issued to the officials concerned, that departmental action against them was pending and that a magisterial inquiry into the death was also under way.
Raghunath pushed back on this, arguing that a departmental inquiry or a magistrate’s probe could not take the place of a proper criminal investigation into the complaint filed by the deceased’s brother, since the two processes serve different purposes and neither results in criminal prosecution on its own.
Telangana High Court’s order
After hearing both sides, Justice Madhavi Devi directed the state government, the prison authorities and the police to file their counter-affidavits and to produce the CCTV footage from the prison by the next date of hearing.
The matter was adjourned by four weeks.
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