The Bombay High Court Granting bail to a man who was mistaken for one of the attackers in an assault case. The Court pointed out that India’s overcrowded jails have come to be one place where even nature does not smile. It ordered the complainant to pay ₹4.2 lakh as compensation for involving the man in the false implication. The man has now suffered income loss due to wrongful imprisonment.
Delivering the judgment, Justice Sanjay Mehare of the Aurangabad bench remarked that the complainant had “lied” in the FIR making grave accusations against the petitioner, which he later retracted himself. The petitioner is a labourer who was languishing in jail since February 7, 2024. He was falsely implicated by Nandedkar as one of the attackers in the alleged attempted murder case.
The court criticized the complainant for manipulating the system to wrongly implicate the petitioner. “It appears that the complainant wanted to put the police, the court, and many others at his finger as per his desire,” the judge said while delivering the judgment. The petitioner was detained solely on the false complaints and the identification made by the complainant.
Justice Mehare noted that the conditions in Indian jails were “overcrowded and miserable.” In such light, prisoners do not have a place to sleep, and there is always the danger of acquiring contagious diseases through dismal conditions. The judge was blunt: “The fundamental right to liberty was curtailed because of the false identification on the petitioner’s part.”.
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The court questioned who would compensate the petitioner for his wrongful imprisonment that almost lasted half six months. “It is time to hold people accountable who irresponsibly manipulate the system and violate the rights of others,” Justice Mehare said. He stressed that the petitioner lost six valuable months of his life without rhyme or reason and deserved compensation.
While surrendering to the fact that liberty cannot be compensated for in terms of money, the judge held compensation in monetary terms is a generally accepted practice having regard to the income of the person concerned, loss suffered and the financial circumstances of the wrongdoer. The court observed that the petitioner who happened to be a labourer earned approximately ₹20,000 a month, whereas complainant used to portray himself as a labourer for filing an affidavit to gain political mileage.
Considering the financial positions of the parties involved, the court directed the complainant to pay ₹3 lakh as damages for violation of the right to liberty of the petitioner and ₹1.2 lakh for the loss of income suffered by him during his imprisonment.
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