273rd Report - Implementation of UN Convention against Torture and Degrading Punishment | Economic Survey & Government Reports - UPSC PDF Download

 Page 1


 
 
 
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 
 
LAW COMMISSION OF INDIA 
 
Report No.273 
 
Implementation of ‘United Nations Convention against Torture and 
other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment’ 
through Legislation 
 
 
 
October, 2017 
  
Page 2


 
 
 
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 
 
LAW COMMISSION OF INDIA 
 
Report No.273 
 
Implementation of ‘United Nations Convention against Torture and 
other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment’ 
through Legislation 
 
 
 
October, 2017 
  
ii 
 
  
Page 3


 
 
 
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 
 
LAW COMMISSION OF INDIA 
 
Report No.273 
 
Implementation of ‘United Nations Convention against Torture and 
other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment’ 
through Legislation 
 
 
 
October, 2017 
  
ii 
 
  
iii 
 
Report No. 273 
Implementation of ‘United Nations Convention against Torture and 
other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment’ 
through Legislation 
 
Table of Contents 
Chapters Title Pages 
I Introduction 1-8 
II International Scenario 9-27 
III Examination of issues relating to Torture by 
various Commissions 
28-33 
IV Constitutional and Statutory Provisions 34-40 
V Judicial Response to Torture in India 41-55 
VI Compensation for Custodial Torture / Death 56-63 
VII Recommendations 64-66 
Annexure: Prevention of Torture Bill 2017 67-75 
Page 4


 
 
 
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 
 
LAW COMMISSION OF INDIA 
 
Report No.273 
 
Implementation of ‘United Nations Convention against Torture and 
other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment’ 
through Legislation 
 
 
 
October, 2017 
  
ii 
 
  
iii 
 
Report No. 273 
Implementation of ‘United Nations Convention against Torture and 
other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment’ 
through Legislation 
 
Table of Contents 
Chapters Title Pages 
I Introduction 1-8 
II International Scenario 9-27 
III Examination of issues relating to Torture by 
various Commissions 
28-33 
IV Constitutional and Statutory Provisions 34-40 
V Judicial Response to Torture in India 41-55 
VI Compensation for Custodial Torture / Death 56-63 
VII Recommendations 64-66 
Annexure: Prevention of Torture Bill 2017 67-75 
CHAPTER – I 
 
Introduction 
 
A. Background 
 
1.1  The history of torture throughout the ages reveals
1
 that torture 
was employed by various communities either in their religious rites or its 
code of punishment.  Torture is a form of crudity and a barbarity which 
appals modern civilisation.  The tormenting of those captured in war was 
looked upon and accepted as inevitable.  Often such captives were 
sacrificed to the gods. Ordeals of fire, water, poison, the balance, and 
boiling oil, were employed in the trial of accused persons. References are 
made to the use of anundal by officials of the Southern Indian provinces 
in the collection of land revenue. One of the most popular methods 
known as thoodasavary which is known as beating up now-a- days, was 
used by tax collectors and others for inducing the payment of dues and 
debts, as well as for eliciting confessions and securing evidence in 
criminal cases. Subjects were forced to drink milk mixed with salt, till 
they were brought to death’s door by diarrhoea.  People were forced to 
accept death by suffocation in a small cell where a large number of 
persons, several times than its capacity to accommodate where put and 
forced to torment by intolerable thirst, lack of fresh air and ruinous 
odour of the cell. 
 
1.2 Depriving a person from sleep impairs the normal functioning and 
performance of individual which amounts to mental and physical torture 
as it has a very wide range of negative effects.
2
 
                                                           
1
 Goerge Ryley Scott, “The History of Torture Throughout the Ages”, 1940 (T. Werner Laurie Ltd., 
London) 
2
 In Re: Ramlila Maidan Incident, 2012 (5) SCC 1 
Page 5


 
 
 
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 
 
 
 
LAW COMMISSION OF INDIA 
 
Report No.273 
 
Implementation of ‘United Nations Convention against Torture and 
other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment’ 
through Legislation 
 
 
 
October, 2017 
  
ii 
 
  
iii 
 
Report No. 273 
Implementation of ‘United Nations Convention against Torture and 
other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment’ 
through Legislation 
 
Table of Contents 
Chapters Title Pages 
I Introduction 1-8 
II International Scenario 9-27 
III Examination of issues relating to Torture by 
various Commissions 
28-33 
IV Constitutional and Statutory Provisions 34-40 
V Judicial Response to Torture in India 41-55 
VI Compensation for Custodial Torture / Death 56-63 
VII Recommendations 64-66 
Annexure: Prevention of Torture Bill 2017 67-75 
CHAPTER – I 
 
Introduction 
 
A. Background 
 
1.1  The history of torture throughout the ages reveals
1
 that torture 
was employed by various communities either in their religious rites or its 
code of punishment.  Torture is a form of crudity and a barbarity which 
appals modern civilisation.  The tormenting of those captured in war was 
looked upon and accepted as inevitable.  Often such captives were 
sacrificed to the gods. Ordeals of fire, water, poison, the balance, and 
boiling oil, were employed in the trial of accused persons. References are 
made to the use of anundal by officials of the Southern Indian provinces 
in the collection of land revenue. One of the most popular methods 
known as thoodasavary which is known as beating up now-a- days, was 
used by tax collectors and others for inducing the payment of dues and 
debts, as well as for eliciting confessions and securing evidence in 
criminal cases. Subjects were forced to drink milk mixed with salt, till 
they were brought to death’s door by diarrhoea.  People were forced to 
accept death by suffocation in a small cell where a large number of 
persons, several times than its capacity to accommodate where put and 
forced to torment by intolerable thirst, lack of fresh air and ruinous 
odour of the cell. 
 
1.2 Depriving a person from sleep impairs the normal functioning and 
performance of individual which amounts to mental and physical torture 
as it has a very wide range of negative effects.
2
 
                                                           
1
 Goerge Ryley Scott, “The History of Torture Throughout the Ages”, 1940 (T. Werner Laurie Ltd., 
London) 
2
 In Re: Ramlila Maidan Incident, 2012 (5) SCC 1 
2 
 
 
1.3 The "Trial and Torture to Elicit Confession” is discussed in detail in 
Kautilya's Arthashastra
3
. The relevant part thereof reads as under: 
 
There are in vogue four kinds of torture (karma):-- Six 
punishments (shatdandáh), seven kinds of whipping (kasa), 
two kinds of suspension from above (upari nibandhau), and 
water-tube (udakanáliká cha). As to persons who have 
committed  grave offences, the form of torture will be nine 
kinds of blows with a cane:--12 beats  on each of the 
thighs; 28 beats with a stick of the tree (naktamála); 32 beats 
on each  palm of the hands and on each sole of the feet; two 
on the knuckles, the hands being  joined so as to appear like 
a scorpion; two kinds of suspensions, face downwards 
(ullambanechale); burning one of the joints of a finger after the 
accused has been  made to drink rice gruel; heating his body for 
a day after he has been made to drink oil; causing him to lie on 
coarse green grass for a night in winter. These are the 18 kinds 
of torture. …... Each day a fresh kind of the torture may be 
employed. 
 
 Those whose guilt is believed to be true shall be 
subjected to torture (áptadosham karma kárayet). But not 
women who are carrying or who have not passed a month after 
delivery. Torture of women shall be half of the prescribed 
standard.  
 
1.4 There is a necessity to protect the society from the hands of 
criminals which has been emphasised by Manu and the law givers of this 
age.
4
 
  
1.5 Under the old Greek and Roman laws, it was specified that only 
slaves could be tortured but later on, the torture of free-men in cases of 
treason was also made allowed. In AD 240, the right to torture slaves 
                                                           
3
 Translated into English by R Shamasastry; Chapter VIII, Book IV; Available at:  
https://ia802703.us.archive.org/13/items/Arthasastra_English_Translation/ Arthashastra_of_Chanakya_-
_English.pdf;  last viewed on 23 August 2017. 
4
 Khandekar, Indrajit, Pawar, Vishwajeet & Ors, “Torture Leading to Suicide: A case Report” 31(2) JIAFM 
152.