Four police officers, sentenced to seven years of imprisonment in the custodial death case of a 20-year-old man, today filed an appeal in the Bombay High Court against their conviction and sought bail pending hearing of their appeal.
Chandrakant Kamble, Umesh Gosavi, Sandeep Salunkhe and Kiran Pingale in their appeal claimed they had not caused any grievous physical harm to the victim and that he was assaulted by the public before he was handed over to the police.
A sessions court had in January convicted the four policemen, who were then attached with suburban Vanrai police station, for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentenced them to seven years in jail.
They were also convicted under IPC sections 330 (voluntarily causing hurt to extort confession) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and fined Rs 15,000 each.
Victim Aniket Khicchi was caught by public for allegedly stealing a laptop from an exhibition in Goregaon on October 26, 2013. He was beaten up by the public before being handed over to the police. During police questioning, Khicchi fell unconscious and was taken to a hospital, but was declared dead.
The police officials in their appeal before the high court further claimed that their arrest in itself was illegal as prior sanction was not taken for prosecution. According to the policemen, they were only discharging their duties.
The high court today, however, said it cannot prima facie accept this contention and said, "In the name of discharging duty, you (police) cannot beat someone up."
The court will hear the pleas on December 7.
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