The Bombay High Court's Nagpur bench has ordered the Maharashtra government to pay Rs.50,000 each to an advocate and a retired military officer after finding that police unlawfully handcuffed them, stripped them to their undergarments in a lockup, and paraded them through public transport, all in connection with a routine non-cognisable complaint.
The two petitioners, Advocate Yogeshwar Kawade and retired serviceman Avinash Date, had originally approached police after Date was allegedly assaulted and his vehicle damaged. Instead of relief, they found themselves locked up under so-called "preventive action," forced to remove their clothing, and then transported in a public bus to a Tahsildar's office in handcuffs, where they were granted bail on a cross-complaint that was itself only a non-cognisable matter.
Police sought to justify the extreme measures by pointing to a crowd gathered outside the station, arguing the restraints were necessary for crowd management. The bench, comprising Justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke and Justice Nivedita Mehta, found this explanation wholly unconvincing, noting there was no evidence whatsoever that either man was a habitual or hardened criminal.
The division bench held that the three officers, Assistant Police Inspector M.M. Dande and Constables Naresh and Deepak Gale, had not merely broken procedural rules but had directly violated Supreme Court guidelines on the use of handcuffs and the constitutional right to dignity. The court underscored the gap between the force's stated values and its conduct on the ground, observing that "such incidents involving Police usually tend to deplete the confidence in our criminal justice system much more than those incidents involving private individuals."
Justice Joshi-Phalke further reasoned that existing IPC provisions, while punitive, are structurally incapable of making a victim whole, and that courts exercising public-law jurisdiction are duty-bound to award monetary compensation wherever a fundamental right has been demonstrably violated, not merely issue a declaration.
The bench accordingly directed the State to pay Rs.50,000 each to both petitioners.
Case Title: Adv. Yogeshwar Madhukarrao Kawade & Anr Vs. The State of Maharashtra & Ors.
Case No.: Writ Petition No. 4927 Of 2010
Coram: Hon'ble Mr. Justice Urmila Joshi Phalke, Hon'ble Mr. Justice Nivedita Mehta
Advocate for the Petitioner: Adv. Shriniwas Deshpande
Advocate for the Respondent: AGP S.S. Hulke, Adv. Aastha Sharma, Adv. P.R. Agrawal
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