A series of recent bail hearings has prompted the Allahabad High Court to question whether long-standing Supreme Court safeguards governing police encounters are being followed in Uttar Pradesh, amid repeated instances of accused persons sustaining gunshot injuries during arrests.
A Court Confronts a Pattern in Encounter Cases
In an order passed on January 28, the Allahabad High Court took a stern view of what it described as a growing and routine practice of police shooting accused persons in the legs and later portraying the incidents as armed encounters. The observations arose during the hearing of bail petitions filed by three accused who had sustained injuries in separate police encounters.
The bench noted that, although the applicants had suffered grievous injuries, the procedural directions laid down by the Supreme Court in People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) vs State of Maharashtra had not been followed. Those directions, reiterated in subsequent judgments, require strict documentation and independent scrutiny whenever death or grievous injury results from a police encounter.
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Lapses in Procedure and Investigation
According to the court record, the police had failed to record the injured persons’ statements before a magistrate or a medical officer. The investigation into the encounter had also not been conducted by an officer senior in rank to the head of the police party involved, another requirement set out by the apex court.
In one of the bail petitions, the court had earlier directed the State to clarify whether an FIR had been registered in connection with the encounter and whether the injured person’s statement had been formally recorded. The State informed the court that an FIR had been lodged, but conceded that no statement had been recorded before either a magistrate or a medical officer. It was further stated that while a sub-inspector had initially been appointed as the investigating officer, the investigation was later reassigned to an inspector.
Taking note of these submissions, the bench concluded that the Supreme Court’s encounter guidelines had not been complied with in the case before it.
Questions on Use of Force and Official Narratives
The court went beyond procedural lapses to comment on the broader pattern emerging from such cases. It observed that certain police officers appeared to be misusing their authority by projecting incidents as encounters to attract the attention of senior officers or to create public sympathy.
“This Court is frequently confronted with cases where, even in matters involving petty offences such as theft, the police indiscriminately resort to firing by projecting the incident as a police encounter,” the judge observed. The bench also noted that no police officer had sustained injuries in the alleged encounters, raising further questions about the necessity and proportionality of the use of firearms.
The court remarked that such actions seemed intended either to please superior officers or to “teach the accused a so-called lesson by way of punishment,” an approach it described as wholly impermissible.
Accountability Sought From the State Leadership
Citing the constitutional separation of powers, the bench underscored that the authority to punish lies exclusively with the courts and not with the police. Any encroachment by law-enforcement agencies into the judicial domain, it said, could not be countenanced in a democratic state governed by the rule of law.
In that context, Justice Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal directed the Director General of Police and the State’s Additional Chief Secretary (Home) to appear before the court via video conference on January 30. They were asked to inform the court whether any oral or written instructions had been issued directing police officers to shoot accused persons in the legs or to otherwise describe such incidents as police encounters.
