MP HC orders compensation for man detained mistakenly

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has ordered the state government to pay a compensation of Rs five lakh to a 68-year-old man for keeping him in jail to serve a sentence for a dead convict over mistaken identity.

In a case of serious negligence, the police kept an innocent senior citizen in jail for four months in place of another man who was sentenced to life for murder. The original convict had died three and a half years after being released on parole.

Justice S.C. Sharma and Justice Shailendra Shukla delivered the verdict on Monday while granting the habeas corpus petition of Kamlesh, son of Husan (68) of Dhar district.

A person named "Husna" was sentenced to life imprisonment in a murder case in Dhar district. He died on September 10, 2016, after being released on parole.

When the convicted prisoner did not return to prison at the end of parole, an arrest warrant was issued against him. The police arrested "Husan" in place of "Husna" and sent him to the Indore Central Jail on October 18, 2019, due to mistaken identity.

The old unlettered tribal was arrested despite repeated pleas for innocence. Expressing deep displeasure over this gross negligence, the High Court bench ordered Husan to be released immediately.

The bench also ordered a contempt of court case against a sub-divisional officer of police (SDOP). This officer gave incorrect information in the affidavit to the court in the case.

The bench said that a contempt case should also be filed against all police personnel who lodged separate entries about Husan describing him as "Husna" (deceased convict) in the scroll of the concerned police station at the time of wrongful arrest.

The court said, "The present case is an example of arresting innocent people without identifying them properly, and therefore, it is directed that in all cases, where an arrest is made, the authorities shall identify the persons so arrested through bio- metric process as well as other documents in order to ensure their identity, and ensure that no innocent person like father of the present petitioner would end up in jail." - IANS