High court summons DGP, Kannauj SP
PRAYAGRAJ :Taking a serious note of the fact that even in serious offences like murder, investigation officers do not complete probe within time and superior police officers have failed to take care of it, the Allahabad high court has directed state’s director general of police and SP, Kannauj, to appear before it on March 5.
The court directed them to file a chart showing the pendency of investigation in the cases across the state which are registered within one year from the date of passing of this order.
“Explain whether they have taken any appropriate action against lax, investigating officers, and, if not, show the reasons,” the court said.
Hearing a petition filed by one Dharmpal Singh of Kannauj, a division bench comprising justice Sudhir Agarwal and justice Rajeev Mishra directed that both DGP and SSP, Kannauj, will file their personal affidavits giving the information by the next date of hearing (March 5).
In the present case, the grievance of the petitioner was that investigation in his matter was not being done fairly and accused persons had not been arrested so far though the case was registered on July 22, 2018 under section 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and other sections of Indian Penal Code at police station Vishugarh in Kannauj district .
After reading the supplementary counter affidavit (reply)
filed on behalf of the state government, the court observed, “A perusal of it shows that, in fact, nothing has been done in the matter though First Information Report was registered on July 22, 2018.
It is really surprising that in such a serious matter involving offence under section 302 (murder) of IPC, investigation has not proceeded at all and the superior officers have also not taken care to ensure, whether investigation is being done properly or not.
In our view, all superior officers including Superintendent of Police, Kannauj as also Director General of Police, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow are responsible for inaction since they are supposed to supervise and ensure that subordinate officers are working properly but we are constrained to observe that facts of this case show their miserable failure in ensuring proper functioning of Investigation Officers”.