Court directs SHO to appear personally along with surety bond
K Koushal
In an apparent dent to the police accountability over custodial practices in Jammu & Kashmir, court has taken cognizance against the Station House Officer (SHO) of Police Station R.S. Pura over allegations that a man and his 75-year-old mother were illegally confined for nearly two months without due legal process.
The Court of Special Mobile Magistrate (Electricity), Jammu, presided over by Arti Devi Koushal, initiated criminal proceedings against SHO Ravi Singh Parihar under Section 127 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, dealing with wrongful confinement.
According to the order, the matter originated from a complaint filed by Kulbir Singh, a resident of village Sidhar in R.S. Pura.
Singh alleged that after the death of his wife Pooja Devi on April 28, 2025, police officials led by the SHO picked him up from Sub-District Hospital (SDH) R.S. Pura during initial inquest proceedings.
“Instead of being allowed to perform the last rites of his deceased wife, he was taken into custody and confined at Police Station R.S. Pura,” said complainant, adding that his elderly mother, 75-year-old Rattan Kour, was also illegally detained during the same period.
Kulbir Singh alleged that he remained confined inside the police station for nearly 25 days continuously without being informed about the grounds of detention.”My mother was also kept inside the police station unlawfully,” Singh said and alleged that police officials denied him communication with relatives and concealed his legal rights, including the right to seek bail.
He maintained that though he was allegedly picked up on April 28, 2025, police formally showed his arrest only on June 29, 2025. The inquest proceedings into his wife’s death were later converted into FIR No. 107/2025 on June 4, 2025.
The complainant claimed that mandatory safeguards under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, were not followed.
Meanwhile, the defense argued that police intervention became necessary due to tensions between the deceased woman’s family and her in-laws outside the hospital premises.
One of the most significant aspects of the case involved CCTV footage from Police Station R.S. Pura.
Fearing custodial abuse, the complainant had requested the court to preserve CCTV footage from the police station to establish whether he and his mother were illegally confined there.
However, the matter took a dramatic turn when authorities informed the court that the footage had become unavailable due to a “short circuit” allegedly occurring at the police station on September 21, 2025.
A report submitted through senior police officers stated that the Digital Video Recorder (DVR) data had been completely destroyed and could not be recovered even by a private technical agency.
The court expressed strong suspicion over these developments.
The Magistrate noted that, the SHO initially claimed CCTV footage had been preserved properly. The alleged short-circuit incident surfaced only after intervention by higher authorities.
Guidelines issued by the Supreme Court and High Courts regarding functioning CCTV systems in police stations appeared to have been ignored.The court observed that these circumstances created prima facie suspicion regarding the functioning of the police station and the conduct of the SHO.
The court order also referred to another controversial development linked to the same police station.
The investigating officer handling the original FIR against Kulbir Singh was recently booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a bribery case.
According to the complaint, the officer (IO, SI Mohd Bashir) was allegedly caught demanding illegal gratification from one of the accused parties in the case by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The court noted that the SHO did not address these serious allegations in his objections filed before the court.
The defense argued that prior government sanction was mandatory before prosecuting a serving police officer for acts committed during official duty.
However, the court rejected this argument, citing legal precedents holding that statutory protection under criminal law does not automatically extend to police officials from constable to inspector rank when allegations involve acts beyond lawful discharge of duty.
After examining the complaint, objections, and records placed before it, the court found sufficient prima facie grounds to proceed against the SHO for alleged wrongful confinement.
The court has directed SHO Ravi Singh Parihar to appear personally before the court on July 2, 2026, along with personal and surety bonds of Rs 30,000.
