Law Relating to Custodial Violence and Torture in India: A Study of Judicial Remedies and Criminal Accountability Mechanisms

In India, the custodial spaces can be viewed as 'evidence factories' because they operate in the realm of law and order, but the truth of the matter is that the issue of torture is a constitutional conundrum of proof, as well as a matter of pain. This paper assesses the response of Indian law to custodial violence in the following ways: (i) constitutional response through the doctrines of the first, fifth, and six actions of the 21st article and the 22nd article, (ii) legal responses through post 2023 criminal law framework, and (iii) legal response through the doctrine of judicial activism and accountability of the Supreme Court. The author's goal is to provide a comprehensive comparative legal and constitutional framework that one can describe as 'Institutional Remedial Procedural Mechanism' (IRPM). The author uses the IRPM framework to disentangle the framework of torture that allows it, to develop a framework of strong public law restitution to combine torts and criminal law violations, and to use a strong non-judicial framework of legally authorized intervention before the judicial system is compelled to act. Finally, the author uses the IRPM framework in its positive form to evaluate the potential torturous framework of the accountability system, where custodial deaths of the police and judicial system as well as the negative torturous framework where judicial mechanisms devolve to the payment of a tort to the system. The data presents a paradox: Although Indian legislation through constitutional guidelines and judicially enforceable safeguards, has legally addressed and condemned torture, paradoxically, law enforcement punitive measures are incomplete, due to the fact that custodial abuse is pursued through fragmented, dispersed, and conflicting legislation, and the investigation is often both institutionally conflicted, and proof is dispersed and distorted due to record control, delays of medical documentation, and intimidation. India's paradox concerning its ICCPR party status and its non-ratification of the Torture Convention, mirrors India's paradox concerning the ICCPR and its non-ratification of the Torture Convention, and the repeatedly noted absence of a standalone anti-torture law in proposed law reform documents. the author argues that the transformation of a constitutional principle to a routine institutional practice, will require legislative unequivocal definition of torture, along with systems of independent proof, a fact finding system that cannot be manipulated, and mechanistic systems of legal liability, which will ensure that the term, “custody” will lose its status as a hiding place behind which law enforcement officers may escape the clasp of accountability.