JUDGMENT

ORDER :— These Misc. Petitions are an off-shoot of the blindings of undertrial prisoners at Bhagalpur in the State of Bihar. Truth has a strange habit of revealing itself and in spite of the veil of secrecy behind which the blindings of those prisoners lay concealed or suppressed, this Court and the country awoke one day to the incredible fact that, in Bhagalpur, undertrial prisoners were subjected to the most inhuman torture imaginable: their eyes were pierced with needles and acid poured into them. Whether these barbarous acts were committed by members of the public after the prisoners were caught or by the police after they were arrested, is not a matter directly in issue before us. The greater probability is that these acts may have been committed mostly by the police. But this much is certain, that six prisoners were thus blinded between Oct., 1979 and May 1980 and twelve between June 11 and July 25, 1980. The petitioner Bachcho Lal Das, who has filed these Misc. Petitions, had assumed charge as the Superintendent of the Bhagalpur Central Jail on Aprl. 19, 1979.

2. On Oct., 26, 1979 a prisoner by the name of Arjun Goswami was sent to the Bhagalpur Central Jail. On Nov.