Deficiencies Creeping Into Criminal Investigations Will Damage Case Of Prosecution: Bombay High Court Opines IO Must Follow Prescribed Procedure

The Bombay High Court has held that an Investigating Officer is required to investigate the crime in accordance within the prescribed procedure of law.

A Bench of Justices Ravindra V. Ghuge and B. U. Debadwar in case of Mohammad Zaheer vs State of Maharashtra & Ors, opined that an investigating officer is supposed to investigate the crime in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure/the procedure applicable and to the best of his ability. He is not supposed to indulge in any such act during investigation, which would have a semblance or a flavour of the I.O. deliberately leaving loopholes in the investigation, so as to tacitly create an advantage in favour of the accused, the Court has held.

In the case at hand, the petitioner asserted that his daughter was intentionally killed by the sub-inspector of police, and that investigating officer tried to cover the matter up.

Pointing to instances from the investigation as submitted by the petitioner, the Court found that the Investigating Officer seriously failed in properly investigating into the crime. One glaring instance of the lapses were that the police did not prepare a seizure panchnama of the car that caused the accident.

The public prosecutor had submitted that such mistakes may have occurred inadvertently. However, the court refused to accept such contention for the reason that an experienced I.O. would never commit such acts inadvertently.

The court noted that there was a clear averment by the petitioner that the I.O. was trying to protect the accused, who was an in-service Sub-Inspector of Police posted in the same Police Station in which the crime has been registered, and within whose jurisdiction the offence had occurred.

This Court would have appreciated, if the accused Sub-Inspector would have been immediately transferred out of the jurisdiction of the said police station. He continued to be a part of the said police station until he was subsequently trapped in an anticorruption bribery case in October, 2020.

The court also noted that the accused was on duty in the same police station when, it is alleged that, he threatened a Gutkha seller of false implication and extracted an amount of Rs.50,000/-, after negotiations on the initial demand of Rs.2 lakhs. Presently, he is under suspension.

Although the court appreciated the steps initiated by the Commissioner of Police, Aurangabad and having independently and un-influentially, conducted the inquiry.

However, the court also record that stoppage of increment for one year would be a punishment which would not be commensurate to the gravity and the seriousness of the conduct of the I.O

The court therefore directed the Commissioner of Police, Aurangabad to issue an appropriate charge-sheet-cum-show-cause notice and follow the procedure as is laid down in law and the service conditions applicable, for conducting a Departmental Enquiry against the I.O.

“If he is found guilty, we would expect maximum punishment to be awarded to him, since this is the only way that the faith and trust of the common man and the public at large would be reposed in the police machinery, which otherwise is facing a flak for it’s role in such cases” said the Court.

The court however refused to go into the statements of eye witnesses, as it would amount to entering upon a parallel trial of the case.