Rajan Pillai

New Delhi, Nov. 22 (PTI): Delhi High Court today asked the state government to explain the grounds on which it opposed Nina Pillai?s plea seeking damages for the custody death of her husband, biscuit tycoon Rajan Pillai, in July 1995.

?You have accepted the Justice Leela Seth Commission report, which indicted your doctors for negligence. Then on what grounds you are opposing the petition?? Justice C.K. Mahajan asked the government counsel.

The high court also asked senior counsel Aryama Sundaram, representing Pillai, to explain the law on compensation for kith and kin of victims of custodial death and sought proof of income of the deceased to support the petitioner?s claim.

The next hearing is on January 12.

Earlier, Sundaram submitted that once the government had accepted the Justice Leela Seth Commission report, which found two doctors guilty of negligence, there was no ground for it to oppose the petition.

In her petition filed in 1998, Pillai sought damages for the death of her husband. She also demanded large-scale prison reforms at Tihar central jail, alleging the inmates? conditions were pathetic.

Rajan Pillai was arrested here in 1995 on his return from Singapore for his alleged involvement in a case over there. He was sent to Tihar jail the day after his arrest and died on July 7, 1995, at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital while in judicial custody. He was in his early forties.