The Bombay high court has asked the state government to file an affidavit on the number of cases in which judicial magistrates have not taken cognisance of custodial death reports.

On Monday, the state government submitted a report and stated that according to the high court’s earlier order, the police have started reporting custodial deaths to the nearest judicial magistrate. The report further said that till September 2016, 28 out of 31 custodial deaths have been reported to the nearest magistrate.

Additional public prosecutor Mankunwar Deshmukh informed the court that in some cases, the magistrates had refused to take cognizance of the custodial deaths that were referred to them. She further said that as of now, judicial inquiry has been completed in seven cases.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice A.A. Sayed was hearing a bunch of PILs regarding an increasing number of custodial deaths in the state.

After hearing this, the court asked, “Give us details of these cases in which magistrates did not entertain reports submitted to them. We will issue appropriate directions to the judicial registrar.”

Justice Oka said: “We want to see the reports in which a judicial inquiry has been completed and a report has also been filed. We will see what has to be done after the report is filed. Otherwise, a judicial inquiry would just be an empty formality.”

On Monday, the state also filed another report in the court, which said CCTV cameras have been installed in 24 police stations across Mumbai as part of a pilot project.