Tillu Tajpuriya murder in Tihar shakes judicial conscience; totally unacceptable: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court Thursday remarked that the brutal murder of gangster Tillu Tajpuriya inside the Tihar jail has shaken its judicial conscience and that such incidents are unacceptable. .Justice Jasmeet Singh remarked that something needs to be done to arrive at a better solution to these issues and the authorities should not wait for such incidents to happen. “We should not have to wait for such incidents to evoke this kind of response. This is a high-security prison. Look at the recoveries made from the accused… This shows that there is potential for similar incidents,” Justice Singh remarked..The Court was dealing with a plea filed by Tajpuriya’s father and brother seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the matter. During the previous hearing, Justice Singh had issued notices on the matter and sought a status report.A report was presented today and it said that all the responsible people have been suspended.Additional Standing Counsel (ASC) Rahul Tyagi said that the authorities are in process of creating a Quick Response Team (CRT) to deal with such instances but there should not be any knee-jerk reaction because “hard cases make bad law”.Tyagi further said that all the accused, even those from outside the jail who are thought to be involved in the crime, will be arrested..However, the Bench asked the counsel why the prison guards took so long to act and why they did not have walkie-talkies for better communication.“Everything was on CCTV; someone must be watching it from the surveillance room no? Why don’t they (guards) have walkie talkies? Every time this happens, a person will run from surveillance to the jail and inform? Why do we have to wait for such instances to happen and then say hard cases make bad law,” the Court asked.The Bench further noted that there was a trial court order asking the jail officials to take care of Tajpuriya, yet he was murdered.“This is not acceptable,” the Court added..It then proceeded to take the status report on record and gave Tajpuriya’s family time to file their rejoinder. The case will now be considered after the court's summer vacation.