JUDGMENT

B.P. DAS, J. — The petitioner has filed this writ petition with a prayer to direct the State and its functionaries to pay her compensation for the death of her husband-Pitambar Pradhan in police custody.

2. The brief facts leading to the writ petition are as follows :-

The deceased Bhalu @ Pitambar Pradhan, husband of the present petitioner, was arrested by the Investigating Officer on 31.1.2003 in connection with Mahanga Police Station Case No.12 of 2003 and was detained in police hazat without being forwarded to the local Magistrate. On 1.2.2003 at about 2 p.m., the Officer-in-Charge of Salipur Police Station, Trinath Mishra, and the Circle Inspector, Keshab Mohapatra came to the village of the petitioner (Bhakuda) and assured her to release her husband on bail if she would come to the police station with the land re¬cord. On such assurance, the petitioner along with the Ward Mem¬ber, Sudhir Mishra came to the police station by a police vehi¬cle and found her husband dead inside the police hazat. Thereaf¬ter, the police officials forced the petitioner and the Ward Member to put their signatures on some documents and on some blank papers and shifted the dead-body to Cuttack for post-mortem. After post-mortem, the petitioner and other villagers re¬quested the police officials to hand over the dead-body for cremation but the police officials refused to hand over the dead-body to them and cremated the same at Khannagar Crematorium, which resulted in some agitation in the village of the petition¬er. Thereafter, the brother of the deceased lodged an FIR on the allegation that the death had occurred in the police station in suspicious circumstances. But no action was taken by the O.I.C., Balichandrapur Police Station. Thereafter, the petitioner lodged an F.I.R. before the O.I.C., Mahanga Police Station on 2.2.2003 to take necessary legal steps for the custodial death of her husband. On 15.2.2003, one Sudhir Kumar Mishra also lodged an F.I.R. before the O.I.C., Balichandrapur Police Station and the matter was intimated to the District Magistrate and Collector, Jajpur by the villagers. When no action was taken by the police authorities, this writ petition was filed by the petitioner with the prayer for compensation.

It would not be out of place to mention here that one Prabir Kumar Das, Advocate, Bhubaneswar, also filed a petition before the Hon’ble Chief Justice drawing his Lordship’s attention to the aforesaid incident and alleging therein that it is a custodial death. As the matter was taken up in judicial side, no action was necessary and ultimately, it was closed.

3. This writ petition was heard in part on 16.4.2004 and thereafter on 19.4.2004 when it was again listed, this Court passed the following orders.

“xxx xxx xxx

2. The matter is very serious and is also of urgent nature. Therefore, we direct the learned Government Advocate to obtain all necessary instructions as to the circumstances relating to the death of husband of the petitioner in the lock up of Mahanga Police Station and to file appropriate counter affidavit, if so advised positively within seven days from today. Otherwise, we will be left with no option but to pass such order as we may think fit and proper in the circumstances of the case...........”

Despite the aforesaid order, the State authorities failed to file counter affidavit in a case of custodial death.

On 10.5.2004 this matter was again listed and on the said date both the Investigating Officers of the case were present in Court in person and produced the case diary, the station diary (one volume), 22 photographs along with corresponding negatives and two video cassettes. Considering the seriousness of the mat¬ter, this Court passed orders, paragraph-5 of which is as follows :-

“5. So in the interest of justice, we appoint Justice C.R. Pal, a retired Judge of this Court to enquire into the matter and submit a report on the following questions :-

(i) Whether Pitambar Pradhan, the deceased