Third party cannot prosecute criminal proceedings: Madras high court

Chennai: Holding that a rank third party to the proceedings who is neither a victim nor an aggrieved person, cannot be permitted to prosecute criminal proceedings, the Madras high court has dismissed a petition, which challenged an order of the lower court, dismissing a complaint relating to an alleged custodial death.

Dismissing the petition filed by Prisoners Right Forum represented by its Director P.Pugalenthi, Justice N.Anand Venkatesh said it is not in dispute that the petitioner forum is neither a victim nor an aggrieved person. This petitioner is in no way connected with the proceeding that was initiated by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate in the year 2014.

The petitioner forum has not suffered any prejudice and its rights are not in any way impaired or it is not a case where the aggrieved person /victim is not able to approach this court and on their behalf the forum is ventilating their grievance, the judge added.

The judge said in this case, the incident took place in the year 2004, wherein a remand prisoner died while in judicial custody.

An enquiry was conducted by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate and a report was submitted to the District Collector and he in turn has forwarded it to the government. The government has passed an order, directing the district collector to initiate criminal proceedings against the accused persons. A criminal complaint came to be filed before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate and the court concerned based on the materials available before it has dismissed the complaint. This order has not been challenged by anyone on the side of the deceased. The petitioner forum took upon itself the task of challenging the order passed by the CMM by way of filing the present petition, the judge added.

The judge said, “This court is of the considered view that the petitioner does not have the locus standi to maintain this petition and this petition has to be dismissed on this ground alone”.

The judge said since it was a case of death that has happened while the deceased was in judicial custody, this court wanted to satisfy itself as to whether there were any materials to implicate the accused persons for the death of the remand prisoner. The remand prisoner Subramaniam was taken to the government hospital at Royapettah on April 4, 2004 and he was declared as brought dead. An autopsy was conducted and the postmortem report and the final opinion given by the doctor shows that the deceased had died of acute heart failure due to coronary artery disease and the death was declared to be a natural death and not due to any injury sustained by the deceased. This finding of the postmortem doctor has not been challenged by anyone belonging to the family of the deceased.

The government of Tamil Nadu took upon itself the task of finding out the real cause of death, and therefore proceeded to pass an order, authorizing criminal proceedings against the accused persons.

A private complaint came to be filed before the CMM, Egmore, who perused the statement of witnesses recorded by the Sub Divisional Magistrate and also the report of SDO and the G.O and came to a conclusion that there were no materials to proceed further with the criminal proceedings and dismissed the complaint, the judge added.