Supreme Court acquits man due to 'gaping holes in UP police probe'

Gaping holes in the investigation by Uttar Pradesh Police into a 17-year old case where a senior bureaucrat was shot dead while controlling a mob of 200-300 men, led the Supreme Court to acquit the main accused on Monday. Disgusted by the hopeless probe done by the police, the court advised the state police to avoid making similar mistakes in future.

The judgment by the top court could not have come at a better time as the state police is probing a similar incident where an inspector was killed in Bulandshahr by a group of armed men who went berserk upon hearing reports of alleged cow slaughter.

The court was dealing with an appeal filed by the UP Police challenging the order of acquittal passed against Wasif Haider by the Allahabad High Court on May 29, 2009. The apex bench of Justices NV Ramana and Mohan M Shantanagouder upheld the HC's findings, but went on to comment on the "hopeless" investigation by the police left it with no choice but to acquit the man.

The senior bureaucrat was the then Additional District Magistrate (ADM), Kanpur. On March 16, 2001, the day of incident, ADM Chandra Prakash Pathak was standing with a posse of armed policemen to contain a riot that broke out near the city's Noorani Masjid.

The bench said, "Although we acknowledge the gravity of the offence and the unfortunate fact of a senior official losing his life in furtherance of his duty, we cannot overlook the fact that the lapses in the investigation have disabled the prosecution to prove the culpability of the accused," Blaming it on "faulty investigation" and "inefficacious prosecution", the bench added, "the benefit of doubt arising out of a faulty investigation accrues in favour of the accused."

So what went so wrong with the police probe? The court identified six lapses. The clinching evidence against the accused was the identification by witnesses. But this did not inspire confidence as the test identification parade (TIP) was held after a delay of 55 days. Five out of seven witnesses gave identical accounts about the features of the accused which matched with 100 per cent accuracy. The court felt this was improbable, considering that the witnesses were at a distance and the accused was one among the rioters numbering 300.

Another major goof-up was the recovery of the bullet. Post-mortem examination found entry and exit wound of the bullet indicating the bullet was not lodged in the body. But police claimed to recover the bullet from the ashes of the deceased officer. Third, there was mismatch between various accounts given by police, some claiming the pistol was recovered from accused at the time of arrest, some claiming after the arrest, and the occurrence of two pistols with the accused. Further, there was no proof to link the bullet with the pistol. Also, there were varied accounts on the place of incident, and the absence of independent witnesses put a cloud over the police story.