Judgment

B.P. JEEVAN REDDY, J.- Leave granted in SLP (Crl.) Nos. 983 of 1990 and 483 of 1992.

2. Criminal Appeal arising from SLP (Crl.) No. 983 of 1990 and Civil Appeal No. 3811 of 1990 are preferred against the judgment of the Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court in Archana Guha v. Ranjit (alias Runu) Guha Niyogi{(1990) 1 CHN 281} dated March 5, 1990 while Criminal Appeal No. 97 of 1994 [arising from SLP (Crl.) No. 483 of 1992] is directed against the order of a learned Single Judge in Criminal Revision No. 1003 of 1991 dated October 4, 1991.

3. The respondent, Smt Archana Guha filed a private complaint in August 1977 against five police officers alleging that they had tortured her in the torture cell of the Police Headquarters at Lal Bazar (Calcutta) in July 1974.{Of the five accused, three are dead. The two surviving accused are the appellants herein} She has set out in detail the manner in which she was tortured in her complaint. On September 30, 1974 she was detained under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971 and released on May 3, 1977. Other members of her family too were similarly detained. They were released on June 21, 1977.

4. On the private com