S.B.Sinha, ACJ. - (1.) This application in the nature of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) depicts a sordid state of affairs.
(2.) The petitioner which is a Non-Government Organisation (N.G.O.), grants legal-aids to the poor and needy and takes up the cases for the downtrodden, received a letter from one Smt. Lalmoni Sardar widow of Bhusan Sardar on 22nd October, 1997. In the said letter it has been stated as to how the local police and the Jail authorities had been torturing the Under Trial Prisoners.
(3.) Bhusan Sardar was one of the such persons who had been tortured. With regard to an alleged incident a case was instituted and according to the complainant and instead and place of the hooligans, the police authorities had arrested her husband Bhusan Ch. Sardar who aged 70 years at the relevant time alongwith another person. He was remanded to Jail Custody. Allegedly when her husband was in jail, one Gobinda Mali allegedly instigated by others alongwith jail authorities had assaulted him severely with a 'Spade' and his head was chopped off. She alleged that unless there was a criminal conspiracy and the help of the prison officers and others such a thing could not have happened and her husband could not have been killed by a co-prisoner. Despite several reports no action had been taken.;