Archive · 8 Aug 2026
MP High Court Says Magistrates Can Name Custodial Death Perpetrators
A man named Bheru was in jail in Dhar, India.
He sadly died while he was in jail in February 2023.
Some people said jail staff may have hurt him.
A special judge, called a Judicial Magistrate, looked into how Bheru died.
The judge wrote a report that named some jail people who might have been responsible.
The jail's boss and some doctors did not like the report.
They asked a bigger court to cancel it.
The bigger court, the Madhya Pradesh High Court, said no and kept the report.
The High Court said judges are allowed to name people when someone dies in custody.
Now the police have to investigate the matter fairly and quickly.
The Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court ruled that a Judicial Magistrate can name persons responsible for a custodial death.
Justice Jai Kumar Pillai dismissed writ petitions challenging a judicial inquiry report and FIR over prisoner Bheru's death at Dhar district jail.
The court cited Section 176(1-A) of the CrPC as giving magistrates wider inquiry powers than Section 176(1).
Bheru died on February 27, 2023, allegedly after being beaten over tobacco possession by another inmate.
Petitions were filed by jail superintendent Raja Ram Dangi and three doctors who conducted Bheru's autopsy.
The High Court directed the investigating agency to proceed impartially and expeditiously.
- Who
- Justice Jai Kumar Pillai of the Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court
- What
- Ruled that judicial magistrates can name persons responsible for custodial deaths and upheld an inquiry report and FIR
- When
- Ruling announced after Bheru's death on February 27, 2023
- Where
- Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, concerning district jail, Dhar, Madhya Pradesh
- Why
- Section 176(1-A) of the CrPC gives judicial magistrates wider inquiry powers in custodial death cases
- Court
- Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court
- Presiding Judge
- Justice Jai Kumar Pillai
- Deceased
- Prisoner Bheru
- Date of Death
- February 27, 2023
- Location
- District jail, Dhar, Madhya Pradesh
- Legal Provision
- Section 176(1-A) of the CrPC
- Petitioners
- Jail superintendent Raja Ram Dangi and doctors Kamlesh Kumar Ahirwar, Chhatrapal Singh Chouhan and Ashish Mishra
- Medical Finding
- Eight ante-mortem injuries; cause and manner of death kept open pending viscera report