HC gives CID an earful for shoddy probe in Kalani case

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday pulled up the State Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for shoddy investigations into the case of attempted murder filed against Omie, son of Ulhasnagar MLA Pappu Kalani.

It was post-court intervention that the investigating agency arrested Omie and two others on August 23 for allegedly threatening and assaulting an Ulhasnagar resident, Sunil Sukhramani.

According to Sukhramani’s plea, which came up for hearing before the division bench of Justices VM Kanade and PD Kode on Wednesday, Omie assaulted him in a bid to force his aunt Neetu to withdraw her candidature from last year’s civic elections.
Appearing on Sukhramani’s behalf, advocate Ganesh Gole said though the agency had arrested the trio, it was not probing the case properly and did not further extend Omie’s custody.

To this, the bench said, “You (police) arrest people where it’s not necessary and put them in jail. But in serious cases like this, you do not do anything.” The bench has directed the CID to file an affidavit on September 25 with steps it has taken to speed up the probe.

Neetu contested the February 16 civic polls against Pappu Kalani’s wife, Jyoti. There is much hostility between the two families. The trio allegedly beat up the petitioner while police looked on. When the complainant, Prakash Kalwani, tried to intervene, he too was assaulted.