The Jharkhand High Court has directed the State Government to pay a compensation of Rs. 5 lakh to the widow of Umesh Singh, who died in police custody in 2015. The court also ordered the State to take departmental action against the police officers involved in the matter.

Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi said it is a "proved case" of police brutality, and questioned why the police department has not departmentally proceeded against the erring police officials as the CID had submitted a report exonerating them.

The court has observed that the state government can recover the compensation amount of Rs five lakh from the concerned police officers and staff.

Most importantly, Chief Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi has directed all district judges to submit report, if any,showing cases of “death in police custody” in their respective districts and inform as to how many cases of custodial deaths were pending in their respective districts.

The Jharkhand High Court CJI was responding to a petition filed by Dhanbad based Mumtaz Ansari seeking justice on his submission that deaths were taking place in police custody.” 

On ground of investigation, police take accused to police station and they die in police custody. There is a provision of judicial inquiry into each such deaths in police custody. The relatives submit applications demanding judicial inquiry, but no judicial inquiry takes place in a majority of cases. Even police, government is supposed to submit inquirya