Though two retired police officers have been arrested for allegedly trying to frame Provogue owner Salil Chaturvedi in a drug case seven years ago, the charge sheet filed by the state criminal investigation department (CID) suggests the police are going soft on their former colleagues.
Though two retired police officers have been arrested for allegedly trying to frame Provogue owner Salil Chaturvedi in a drug case seven years ago, the charge sheet filed by the state criminal investigation department (CID) suggests the police are going soft on their former colleagues.
The CID filed charges against the duo on Friday under the Indian Penal Code, not under the Narcotic Drug and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. A special NDPS court had directed the CID to investigate the alleged frame-up.
Charges were filed against inspector Subhash Kenjle, who investigated the case against Chaturvedi, and Madhukar Gatade, who was senior inspector in charge of the airport police station in 2005, before the 66th metropolitan magistrate’s court in Andheri. But the main accused, constable Ashok Bhosle, who had claimed to have recovered 3gm of cocaine from the bathroom of Chaturvedi’s Lokhandwala flat in Andheri, was not named in the charge sheet.
“Bhosle not being named and the NDPS charges being dropped give rise to doubts about the way the investigation has been carried out,” said Chaturvedi’s lawyer, Rizwan Merchant.
When asked on Friday why the ex-policemen had been arrested and produced in court, additional director general of police (CID) SP Yadav had told DNA that they were being investigated in an ‘extortion’ case.
Merchant plans to file an intervention application in the sessions court. “We are not surprised at the truncated charges in the charge sheet,” he said. “It appears that the CID was never interested in investigating the source of cocaine which was held by the trial court to be a case of ‘planting’ on Chaturvedi.”
The CID has charged Kenjle and Gatade with tampering with evidence. Its report says the panchnama that was supposed to have been conducted at Chaturvedi’s residence was actually done at the police station. The agency also found that Gatade was not present at the flat when the raid took place though he had claimed to have been there.
Chaturvedi, Provogue’s deputy managing director, was arrested under the NDPS Act in 2005. He was later acquitted of all charges.
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