HC: Don’t protect errant policemen
Pulling up the Delhi police for not taking action against its erring officials, the Delhi high court has said that instead of taking action against them, the department tries to protect them.
Upholding a lower court’s order to initiate criminal proceedings against Delhi police inspector, Gurmeet Singh, for not registering a case of a woman who had been allegedly gangraped in Gokulpuri in 2005, Justice Shiv Narayan Dhingra said, “The most unfortunate part is that whatsoever wrong the police officials may do, the department rarely takes action against them. Instead, they are protected despite dereliction of duty on their part.”
The court passed these remarks after dismissing a petition filed by Singh seeking quashing of the criminal proceedings initiated against him by the trial judge for refusing to lodge FIR in the gangrape case. Singh was the SHO of the police station at the time of the incident. The court said that in such cases, judges should be proactive in directing proceedings against such officials.
After finding sufficient evidence against the three accused in the rape case, the lower court had awarded 10-year imprisonment to them, and had directed the police to launch criminal proceedings against Singh.
The court said, “The sessions judge was rightly disturbed over the lack of sensitivity of the police official towards a gangrape victim and his grave dereliction of duty in not registering FIR in the case”.
The court said, it was the duty of a judge to initiate action against erring officials.
The court further said that “It is his constitutional duty to bring it to the notice of the department and ask for appropriate action including registration of an FIR. An FIR can be registered at the instance of any person who has the information of commission of crime.
“If a judge, during performance of his/her duties, learns about commission of a crime, either inside the court or he learns about commission of crime by the investigating officer/SHO, during the course of trial, there is no reason why he cannot inform about this crime, having been committed by one of the police officers, to his superior officers and ask for action in accordance with law.
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