Bombay court expresses 'sheer anguish' over cops not maintaining case diaries

7 months ago 16

The Bombay High Court has expressed its "sheer anguish" over repeated instances wherein police officials do not maintain their case diaries as mandated in law despite directives issued by the Maharashtra Director General of Police to all police stations on the issue.

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Bombay High Court found case diaries were maintained in “most shabby manner” and not in a bound volume. (File photo)

Vidya

Mumbai,UPDATED: Jun 15, 2024 05:47 IST

The Bombay High Court has expressed its "sheer anguish" over repeated instances wherein police officials do not maintain their case diaries as mandated in law despite directives issued by the Maharashtra Director General of Police to all police stations on the issue.

A case diary is a record of daily investigation progress into a case. Under the provision of Section 172 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), a police officer conducting an investigation is required to maintain a record of an investigation done on each day in a particular case.

The case diary, according to rules, cannot be loose sheets of paper but a proper bound volume, paginated and should not contain any other irrelevant documents.

The bench of Justices Ajay Gadkari and Neela Gokhale noted that in spite of various orders of the court and even a circular being issued by the DGP on February 12, 2024, policemen were not maintaining case diaries as they should be maintained.

The court on Thursday seized a file which was purportedly a case diary of a FIR registered with Mumbai police. The court directed it to be forwarded to the Maharashtra Director General of Police (DGP) for appropriate action.

The court ordered the so-called case diary of the Kherwadi police station to be forwarded to the DGP and said, “We direct the DGP to take appropriate remedial action and to ensure strict compliance at least of its own circulars by all the police officers in the state."

The bench directed the DGP to submit a detailed report on the same, on June 28, when the issue will be heard again.

The bench passed this direction while going through a petition seeking quashing of a case that had been registered at Kherwadi police station in Mumbai. The bench expressed “sheer anguish” over repeated instances where police officials did not maintain their case diaries as mandated in law.

The bench said this was yet another classic example where the police have acted in utter defiance of section 172(1-B) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) which says that the diary containing the day-to-day entry of the proceedings in the probe has to be duly paginated.

The bench found that the case diaries of the Kherwadi police station were maintained in a “most shabby manner” and not in a bound volume.

The court in its order said it appears that the circular and directions issued by the DGP had not percolated to the lower rank of police officers, who are on the field.

“It appears to us that the investigating officers are either ignorant of the circular or are feigning ignorance to it. We can understand that the Investigating Officers may not be aware of the provisions of Criminal Procedure Code, but we cannot accept a situation where the police officers are not aware of the circulars issued by the DGP, who is the head of their institution,” the bench said.

“We are making these observations out of sheer anguish, since we have repeatedly come across such blatant contraventions of the circulars issued by the DGP as well as other statutory requirements,” the bench said.

Published By:

Shweta Kumari

Published On:

Jun 15, 2024

Article From: www.indiatoday.in
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