3 min readRanchiMay 15, 2026 02:51 AM IST
The Jharkhand High Court on Thursday termed custodial deaths a “profound failure of the constitutional machinery” and pulled up the state government for bypassing mandatory judicial inquiries in more than half of the custodial death cases over the past several years.
Hearing a PIL filed by Md. Mumtaz Ansari, a Division Bench led by Chief Justice M S Sonak observed that “the occurrence of a fatality within the coercive control of the State, legally categorised as a ‘custodial death’, represents a profound failure of the constitutional machinery.”
The court made the observations while examining data submitted by the Jharkhand government, which showed that 427 custodial deaths were reported in Jharkhand between 2018 and 2026. According to the state’s own affidavit, inquiries in 262 of these cases were conducted by Executive Magistrates instead of Judicial Magistrates despite a statutory requirement mandating judicial probes in custodial death cases.
After examining the data, the Bench said this was “shocked beyond words” and accused the state of displaying “utter disregard for legal procedures” in handling custodial deaths. “By their own admission, 262 inquiries were conducted by Executive Magistrates, even though the law had unequivocally stripped the executive of this prerogative two decades ago,” the court observed. The court also ordered fresh judicial inquiries in all custodial death cases since 2018, where only Executive Magistrate inquiries had been conducted.
The High Court noted that section 176(1-A) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, introduced in 2006 and now continued under Section 196(2) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), makes it mandatory for custodial death inquiries to be conducted by Judicial Magistrates. The Bench said, “The right to life is not a mere biological concept; it is an expansive guarantee that inherently encompasses the right to live with human dignity.”
The court further observed that prisoners, undertrials and other accused retain their constitutional protections. “Even when an individual is accused of an offence or stands as a convicted prisoner, her entitlement to a dignified and peaceful life remains inviolable,” it said.
Referring to the state’s handling of custodial death cases, the Bench said the violations, if left unchecked, would “increase custodial unnatural deaths, embolden the perpetrators, and promote lawlessness”.
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The court also called the government’s data into question, saying it was mathematically irreconcilable that the state reported 427 custodial deaths while the number of inquiries conducted by Executive and Judicial Magistrates together totalled 487. “This discrepancy not only reflects a systemic disregard for the law but also casts serious doubt on the state’s veracity and diligence in maintaining these records,” it observed.
The court further held that bypassing mandatory judicial inquiries and replacing them with executive processes amounted to “administrative lawlessness”.
While relying on several Supreme Court rulings on custodial violence and prisoners’ rights, the HC also cited earlier observations that deaths in police custody are among the “worst kind of crimes in civilised society” and that “men in khaki are not above the law”.
The court directed the state government and district judiciary to identify officers responsible for the lapses.
