Special Lecture by NHRC Chair, NLSIU | “Ties of Brotherhood: Custodial Deaths and the Law in India”

The National Human Rights Commission Chair at NLSIU is presenting a special lecture on “Ties of Brotherhood: Custodial Deaths and the Law in India” with Advocate and Researcher Megha Bahl on Wednesday, 10th July, at 5.30 pm.

About the speaker 

Megha Bahl is a Delhi-based High Court and trial court lawyer who has worked on both prosecution and defence within the criminal legal system. She has undertaken extensive research and legal aid on concerns of democratic rights, particularly those relating to police violence. Megha is a Fulbright scholar who recently completed her Master’s in Law from the University of Texas at Austin. At UT Austin, she undertook research with the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab, a research and advocacy group at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, on custodial deaths and oversight conditions for those incarcerated in the state of Texas.

Abstract

Custodial deaths are universally recognized as a violation of fundamental and human rights, but continue to persist unabated within the police and prison systems of the country. According to the last available National Human Rights Commission Annual Report, it received 2543 intimations of custodial deaths in police, judicial and (para)military custody within the year 2021-22 itself. Recent interventions have proposed technological solutions to the challenge of custodial violence, for instance, through the mandatory installation of CCTV cameras in police stations. This talk aims to bring attention to the systemic challenge of “ties of brotherhood”, in the words of the Supreme Court in DK Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997), which breeds impunity for such forms of police violence. Here, ties of brotherhood refer to legal and organizational cultures within police organizations which shield perpetrators and impede access to justice. The talk relies on two case studies of custodial deaths from Delhi to throw light on the specific ways in which these ties of brotherhood operate among the police organizations, and the capacity of the Law and legal processes to constrain such organizational cultures.