‘Probe must be unbiased’: HC hands Nadia death probe to CBI
Times of India | 9 April 2025
12 Kolkata: Calcutta High Court on Tuesday handed over an investigation in Nadia to CBI after taking note of an observation by Supreme Court that the possibility of "police vendetta" in a related case could not be ruled out.
Justice Tirthankar Ghosh passed the order acting on a petition by the widow of the deceased, who was picked up by cops from his residence at 1am on Aug 16, 2023. He was found dead 400-500m from his residence the next day.
Justice Ghosh held that what was more important was "to instil confidence in the petitioner who lost her husband. The investigation should be unbiased, comprehensive, and should be seen to be done by authorities against whom there was no issue of vendetta."
The widow of the deceased had approached the Nadia SP on Sept 1, 2023. The petitioner complained against eight police officers of Muruti police station, stating that her husband, Shaukat Mandal, was murdered in police custody and his body left in a garden near their residence. The court noted that no FIR was registered based on her complaint.
The then OC of Muruti police station, among the accused, submitted that cops raided the residence of accused Mohan Mandal but could not find him because, according to relatives and neighbours, he had fled through the back door. The police team, while coming back, picked up Mohan's brother, Shaukat, who was found dead the next day.
"What did the police do? Did they find the person they were looking for? What were the police doing during the intervening night till the body of the brother was recovered?" Justice Ghosh said. "Police, in a designed and calculated manner, picked up the husband of the petitioner, assaulted him before taking him into the police van."
Justice Ghosh then took note of the division bench order on Dec 14, 2023, in which the bench transferred the case to CBI. The state challenged the order in SC. The apex court, while disposing of the special leave petition, recorded two possibilities — the incident could be a coincidence, and second, there is a probability of police vendetta, involving serious charges of human rights violation.
Counsel for the then OC relied upon the observations of the executive magistrate during the postmortem, stating that the magistrate ruled out the involvement of OC in the matter.
The state counsel submitted that police were on the verge of completing the investigation.