Tokyo High court orders to pay 39 million yen to the family of Arjun Bahadur Singh

Tokyo- The Tokyo High Court today (19th) ordered the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to pay over 39 million yen in damages to the family of Arjun Bahadur Singh who died in police custody eight years ago, restrained and handcuffed.

The order of the high court today gives justice to the family who had challenged the Tokyo district court’s order that had fixed just one million yen as relief to the family.

Nepali national Arjun Bahadur Singh  (39 at the time) was arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department in March 2017, and after being restrained with belt-type handcuffs and other handcuffs while in custody at the police station, he lost consciousness
and died.

The family of the man filed a lawsuit against the national and Tokyo Metropolitan governments, claiming that the death was caused by unlawful restraints, seeking approximately 62 million yen in damages. The Tokyo District Court, in its initial hearing, ordered the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to pay approximately 1 million yen in damages.

The bereaved family and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government appealed the decision, but in a ruling today, the Tokyo High Court overturned the first-instance ruling and ordered the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to pay over 39 million yen in damages.

In its ruling, the Tokyo High Court pointed out that police station officials “had a duty to take care not to bind Arjun more tightly than necessary, thereby significantly restricting his blood circulation,” and “by binding him more tightly than necessary, they violated that duty.”

Furthermore, with regard to “mutual guarantees” under the State Compensation Act, the Tokyo District Court in its first instance had ruled that the maximum amount should be approximately 1 million yen, the same as the compensation awarded to Japanese people in
Nepal. However, the Tokyo High Court increased the amount, stating that “strictly requiring mutual guarantees could lead to unreasonableness or adverse effects from the perspective of international  human rights protection.”