No Bail For Cops Accused In Tamil Nadu Custodial Deaths: Supreme Court

Two police officers accused in a case of custodial deaths of a man and his son in Tamil Nadu that had outraged the nation, will not get bail, the Supreme Court has decided. The policemen belong to the Sattankulam police station in Tamil Nadu, where P Jeyaraj and his son J Bennicks had died in police custody in June 2020, allegedly after prolonged torture.

The two-judge bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari refused to allow bail to P Raghu Ganesh and S Sridhar. Dismissing the pleas, Justice Vineet Saran said, "Not at this stage".

On June 19 last year, during the lockdown, Jayaraj and Bennicks were taken into custody on the allegation that they had kept their mobile phone shop open beyond permissible hours.

After their death in custody on June 22, the Tamil Nadu government handed over the investigation to the CBI, which chargesheeted nine police personnel.

In its chargesheet, the central investigative agency said the men were tortured for over six hours by policemen who "wanted to teach them a lesson" in how to behave with cops.

"Our investigation revealed that the father-son duo was arrested on the evening of June 19 and was allegedly tortured at the Sathankulam police station by the accused in the evening as well as in the intervening night, consequent to which both of them succumbed to the injuries and died in the intervening night of June 22 and June 23," the agency said.

"Whenever there used to be a lull, accused inspector Sridhar used to prod the staff by asking about reasons for silence and thereby instigating them further to start fresh rounds of beating," the chargesheet read.