Gurugram court raps police for playing with liberty of citizen

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 12

Rapping the Haryana Police for unwarranted acts of omission and commission in a case where an accused was arrested in an FIR after interrogating him till the wee hours in another matter, a Gurugram court has ordered initiation of action after bringing the matter to Haryana Home Secretary's notice.

Directing the forwarding of the order's copy to the Home Secretary for "drawing appropriate action against the IO, SHO or ACP under intimation to this court", the court advised the Gurugram Commissioner of Police to consider the desirability of getting further investigation conducted by a senior officer, preferably an IPS officer.

Taking up the matter, Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Kumar Sharma observed that it appeared to be a case of "shoddy investigation and playing with the liberty of a citizen" after asserting that the court would be failing in its obligations if the unwarranted acts of omission and commission were tolerated meekly and not brought to the notice of the senior officers for appropriate action.

One of the arguments raised by the counsel for the accused was that the entire exercise was undertaken to bypass the order of interim anticipatory bail passed by the court. The matter has its genesis in an FIR registered on August 30 for criminal breach of trust and cheating under Section 406 and 420 of the IPC.

During the course of investigation, a co-accused was joined in the probe and Sections 467, 468, 471 and 120-B dealing with forgery and criminal conspiracy were added. The accused before the court was granted interim protection till December 8 and asked to join investigation.

The accused was interrogated by the investigating officer, SHO concerned and other police officials continuously for 16 hours, till 2 am on December 8. One of the police officials present then arrested him, stating that another FIR had been registered.

Judge Sharma asserted that the defence counsel's arguments could not be brushed aside outright that the exercise was to prove that the police would have the last laugh. Though the bail application pertained to the earlier FIR, the court could not be expected to be absolutely oblivious to the developments leading to the liberty of the accused protected by it.

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