Warder punished for killing of rowdies inside prison

High Court upholds the punishment of withholding one annual salary increment

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has upheld the punishment of withholding one annual increment in salary of a prison warder on whose watch rowdies inside a jail managed to sneak in weapons and indulged in a fight resulting in the death of two inmates.

The petition filed by GB Mulki Patil in 2022, the head warder of district prison in Kolar came up before the division bench of Justice G Narendar and Justice Venkatesh Naik T. It was disposed of by them recently. Patil had challenged the order passed by a Tribunal in 2020.

Patil was discharging duties as a warder of Bengaluru Central Prison. It was alleged that due to his negligence and failing to conduct proper search, certain undertrials who had enmity against each other took advantage of it and indulged in criminal activities inside the jail. Some undertrials were said to have contacted their supporters outside the prison with the help of mobile phones they had secreted into their cells.

The supporters outside the prison then threw deadly weapons inside the prison compound which was collected by them. These prisoners then moved through different barracks and attacked two unde-trials, Ushuf aka Isubu and Ganesh Shivaram Shetty, causing their death.

An enquiry report confirmed the possession and use of mobile phones by the accused under-trials and that the possession and use of the mobile phones would not have been possible if the petitioner (Patil) and others who were the warder and head warder had discharged their duty diligently and made a thorough search of the barracks in accordance with prison rules.

It was alleged that “their lack of diligence aided the accused/under-trials to secret the weapons to commit the murder and the lack of diligence has resulted in violation of Rule 266(I) and (II) of the Karnataka Prison Manual, 1978. An enquiry officer after appreciating the evidence on record concluded that the charge is proved.

On the enquiry report, the punishment of withholding only one annual increment only for a period of three months without cumulative effect was imposed. The Tribunal after appreciating the material and the enquiry report has affirmed the findings. Patil challenged this before the HC, which also upheld the punishment.

“We have perused the order of the Tribunal and the enquiry report. There being no aberrations in the enquiry report and the appreciation of evidence being fair, we do not find any ground which would warrant further consideration of the writ petition. The punishment imposed cannot be by any stretch of imagination, deemed to be disproportionate or excessive,” the HC said dismissing Patil’s petition.