Ahmedabad, Jul 22 Taking suo motu cognisance of a lawyer's complaint, the Gujarat High Court has initiated a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) into the incident of alleged flogging and public parading of handcuffed accused persons by police in Surat recently.
The case, which is likely to come up for hearing shortly, is based on a July 14 incident, wherein a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) and a group of policemen were allegedly seen in video footage parading the handcuffed accused persons publicly and subjecting them to repeated physical assault.
Lawyer Utkarsh Dave wrote to HC Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal, calling the incident as "disturbing and shocking".
He prayed the Chief Justice to take suo motu cognisance of the incident based on videos being circulated on social media.
In his representation, the lawyer informed the court that as per videos and media reports, the accused persons were dragged by their hair, slapped and beaten repeatedly while being compelled to walk through public roads with handcuffs, allegedly in the presence and under supervision of senior police officers.
The incident is "wholly inconsistent with the constitutional values that government the exercise of police powers in a democratic society," it said.
The representation alleged that the accused were "dragged by their hair, slapped and beaten in full public view under the supervision of senior police officers".
He called it a blatant violation of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, and drew on the Supreme Court's ruling in D K Basu vs State of West Bengal and the Gujarat High Court's observations in the 2022 flogging case in Gujarat's Kheda, where a similar public assault on accused persons drew judicial ire.
