By IANS,
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court Friday awarded Rs.10 lakh to Nina Pillai, widow of ‘Biscuit King’ Rajan Pillai, on her petition seeking compensation from the central government for his custodial death in July 1995.
Delivering the judgment, Justice S. Muralidhar said: “In these circumstances, it is clear that the lack of medical personnel and the faulty system of Tihar Jail were responsible for the prisoner not being given medical treatment as soon as possible.”
He asked the Delhi government to pay Nina Pillai Rs.10 lakh within four weeks, along with Rs.20,000 as litigation cost.
“The petitioner will deploy the compensation amount in any charitable cause of her choice,” the court said.
It also asked the government to implement the recommendations of the panel which probed Pillai’s death in custody.
“The government will, within a period of three months from today, ensure that the suggestions made by the Leila Seth Commission of Inquiry (LSCI) in its report for improvement of the system at Tihar be adopted,” Justice Muralidhar added.
Pillai, whose takeover of Britannia Industries earned him the title of ‘Biscuit King’, was arrested in New Delhi July 3, 1995, for an alleged corporate offence in Singapore and died while in custody July 7, 1995.
A dispute with his principal partner, a group of investors led by F. Ross Johnson, former president of R.J.R. Nabisco Inc, led to the Singapore’s commercial affairs department launching prosecution against Pillai between March and August 1993.
On April 10, 1995, Pillai was convicted under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Penal Code of Singapore.
As the court was to take up arguments on the question of mitigation of sentence, Pillai left for India and the court then issued non-bailable warrants for his arrest.
India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was sent a copy of the warrant for tracing and detaining Pillai for extradition.
The CBI did not find Pillai at his Mumbai address, while Nina Pillai filed an application before a Mumbai court April 15, 1995, for grant of anticipatory bail to her husband.
The plea was rejected and she then approached the Bombay High Court which also dismissed her plea.
On April 28, 1995, Pillai surrendered before a magistrate in Thiruvananthapuram. He also filed an application for bail and was granted interim bail till May 5, 1995.
Thereafter, the Kerala High Court took up the case and called for the records. A larger bench was constituted which quashed the bail order.
However, Pillai did not surrender and was arrested by the CBI from a five-starh otel in New Delhi.
He was brought before a local court, which remanded him to judicial custody. Pillai was then taken to the Tihar jail.
While in judicial custody, he was shifted to the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital due to health problems, where he died.
Earlier, the government argued that Pillai died due to excessive drinking and improper medical treatment, but not due to custodial torture as alleged.
In her petition, Nina Pillai claimed that her husband was a “sad victim of potent admixture of brutality, torture, atrocity, insensitivity, recklessness and negligence” of the state.
“The LSCI noted that the ambulance was just like an ordinary van and had no medical fixtures and facilities or even a bed for putting the stretcher,” states the court order.