Judges want DCP to explain why Sec 302 was applied against accused.
The falling standards of investigation and related procedures followed by the Mumbai police came to light in the Bombay high court on Friday.
A division bench of the court observed that the slipshod handling by the Mumbai Police could lead to the acquittal of the accused in a murder case.
Justices DB Bhosale and AR Joshi were hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by a father of a 10-year-old boy, who the police claimed was his body they had recovered from a site at MIDC, Andheri (east), and arrested two people in connection with it. The two accused arrested includes the boy’s mother.
The case took a turn on Friday when public prosecutor Pandurang Pol informed the court that that both the DNA conducted on a body as well as the narco analysis conducted on the two accused have remained inconclusive.
“If the reports are inconclusive, how can you register an offence of murder? If you apply section 302 (of the IPC) it means the boy is dead. Let us know the basis for concluding the boy is dead. Merely because you have filed a charge sheet does not mean you shrug off your responsibility to trace the boy. We pray he is alive,” observed the bench.
The police, by just filing a charge sheet, cannot conclude that a person is dead, observed the judges.
The court has now directed deputy commissioner of police (zone X), Prakash Mutyal, to file a personal affidavit before the next hearing stating ‘what prompted the investigating agency to apply Sec 302 against the accused’.
When the court was told that a co-accused had confessed to killing the boy and a body recovered from the spot he mentioned, the judges remarked: “Prima facie, it appears that either the accused are misleading the case or the DNA test is defective. This can lead to acquittal of the accused.”
According to prosecution, Pawankumar Prajapati, 35, and his wife Janakdulari gave a missing complaint at the MIDC police station in June 2008.
With no sign of Ajaykumar, Pawankumar filed a habeas corpus petition in HC in January 2009.
Finding something amiss, the earlier division bench in December last year had asked the police to question the complainant’s parents.
Police also informed that Janakdulari used to visit police station with one Nanhe Harijan.
After apprehending Harijan, police conducted lie detector and brain mapping tests in which he allegedly confessed to having killed the boy with the help of Janakdulari.
The motive: the boy had caught them in a compromising position.
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