NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, strongly criticised the Gujarat police officials for their public flogging of five Muslim men in Kheda district in 2022. The court questioned the actions of the four police personnel involved, asking, “What kind of atrocities are these?”
The two-judge bench of the SC, headed by Justice BR Gavai and also comprising Justice Sandeep Mehta, questioned the authority of the police to tie people to poles and beat them in public while recording videos.
The court expressed its severe disapproval of the actions and asked what gave the police the right to tie the men to poles and subject them to flogging.
The incident came to light when a video of the alleged atrocities surfaced on social media platforms. It showed men being flogged by certain police personnel, supposedly in retaliation for disrupting a Garba event in Kheda district of Gujarat on October 3, 2022.
The Supreme Court provided partial relief by staying the contempt proceedings against the four police officers who had been sentenced to 14 days of simple imprisonment by the Gujarat High Court in October of the previous year for their involvement in the public flogging of the Muslim men in Kheda.
The court also admitted the appeal filed by these four Gujarat police personnel, who challenged the Gujarat High Court’s October order and scheduled the matter for further hearing in February. The four police personnel who approached the Supreme Court were A V Parmar, D B Kumavat, Laxmansinh Kanaksinh Dabhi, and Rajubhai Dabhi. They filed the appeal under Section 19 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, against the Gujarat High Court’s October order.
Senior advocate Siddharth Dave, representing the four police officers, informed the bench that the officers were already facing criminal prosecution, departmental proceedings, and an inquiry by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).