The petitions arise from a grave crime and a contested death: a young girl was raped and murdered in Baruipur, and one of the accused, taken to the spot to reconstruct the crime, died in what the police describe as an encounter and the petitioners allege was a fake one. The State disputes the allegation. The Court has directed the State to answer on affidavit, to preserve the evidence, and to report on the progress of the investigation, which it expects to be completed soon.
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has directed the State of West Bengal to file affidavits dealing with allegations that a man accused in the rape and murder of a young girl in Baruipur died in a fake police encounter, and to apprise the Court of the progress of the investigation on the next date [Association for Protection of Democratic Rights and Others v. State of West Bengal and Others].
A Division Bench of Justice Arijit Banerjee and Justice Reetobroto Kumar Mitra passed the order on a batch of writ petitions styled as public interest litigations.
The background
The petitions concern what the Court described as an unfortunate incident in which a young girl was raped and murdered in the Baruipur area. According to the record, when one of the accused was taken to the place of occurrence to reconstruct the crime, he died in what the police describe as an encounter. The petitioners, several rights organisations and individuals, allege that it was a fake encounter. That allegation is strongly denied and disputed by the State, represented by its law officers.
The batch includes petitions filed by the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights, the Protection for Peoples Right Organisation, the Janaswastha Suraksha O Adhikar Mancha and individual petitioners, and the West Bengal State Human Rights Commission was represented before the Court. The nature of the offence, involving a child, means the identity of the victim is protected by law and cannot be disclosed.
What the Court ordered
The State filed a report before the Court, in terms of an earlier order passed by a coordinate Bench in July 2026. The Court directed that the report be kept with the records. The law officer for the State submitted that the report could not immediately be supplied to the other parties as the investigation was still ongoing.
The Court directed the State to file affidavits dealing with the allegations in the writ petitions and to serve them on the petitioners’ advocates within two weeks, with any replies to follow within a week thereafter. It listed the matters again for October 6, 2026, on which date the State is to further apprise the Court of the progress of the investigation.
Noting that quite some time had elapsed since the investigation began, the Court recorded its expectation that the investigation be completed very shortly, and preferably before the adjourned date, though it added a careful qualification:
“…we expect the investigation to be over very shortly and preferably before the adjourned date, without of course compromising the quality of the investigation.”
Senior counsel for one set of petitioners submitted that the investigating authority should preserve all the material evidence pertaining to the alleged offence. The Court observed that this had, needless to say, to be done by the investigating authority in accordance with the applicable law.
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Why it matters
A case of this kind places two things the public feels strongly about in tension, and the law’s answer to that tension is what these proceedings are about. On one side is revulsion at a horrific crime against a child; on the other is the settled constitutional position that even a person accused of the gravest offence cannot be lawfully killed outside the process of law, and that a death in police custody or a police action demands independent scrutiny. Public sympathy for the victim does not suspend the requirement that a custodial or encounter death be investigated as if it were an offence until shown otherwise.
The framework the Court will apply is well established. In PUCL v. State of Maharashtra, the Supreme Court laid down binding guidelines for every death in a police encounter, including registration of an FIR, an independent investigation, a magisterial inquiry and intimation to the human rights commission. Those requirements exist precisely so that the label “encounter” cannot by itself close the inquiry into how a person died. The direction to the State to answer the allegations on affidavit, to report on the investigation, and to preserve the evidence is the High Court holding the State to that framework.
It is important to be clear about what has and has not been established. Nothing in this order finds that the encounter was fake, and the State denies that it was; equally, nothing in it accepts the police account. The Court has done what a constitutional court does at this stage: required the State to place its version on record, insisted that the evidence be preserved, and set a timeline while cautioning that speed must not come at the cost of the quality of the investigation. The competing accounts, and the guilt of the deceased in the underlying crime, which can no longer be tried, will be tested through the investigation and whatever proceedings follow, not in a news report.
Case Title: Association for Protection of Democratic Rights and Others v. State of West Bengal and Others [WPA (P) 441 of 2026, heard with connected petitions]
Bench: Justice Arijit Banerjee and Justice Reetobroto Kumar Mitra, High Court at Calcutta
Date of Order: September 15, 2026 | Next Listed: October 6, 2026
Status: State directed to file affidavits and to report on the investigation. Fake-encounter allegation disputed by the State; nothing established. Evidence to be preserved in accordance with law.