Judgment

Arijit Pasayat, J.—"If you once forfeit the confidence of our fellow citizens you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”, said Abraham Lincolin. This Court in Raghu­bir Singh v. State of Haryana (AIR 1980 SC 1087) and Shakila Abdul Gafar Khan (Smt.) v. Vasant Raghunath Dhoble and Another (2003(7) SCC 749), took note of these immortal observations while deprecating custodial torture by the police.

2. Custodial violence, torture and abuse of police power are not peculiar to this country, but it is widespread. It had been the concern of international community because the problem is univer­sal and the challenge is almost global. The Universal Declaration of ­Human Rights in 1948 which marked the emergence of a worldwide trend of protection and guarantee of certain basic human rights ­stipulates in Article 5 that “No one shall be subjected to tor­ture or to cruel, inhuman or ­degrading treatment or punishment”. Despite this pious declaration, the crime continues ­unabated, though every civilized nation shows its concern and mak