State govt invites court’s ire over untraced reports

HC TAKES SERIOUS NOTE OF HARYANA POLICE PREPARING UNTRACED REPORTS IN LARGE NUMBER OF JAT QUOTA VIOLENCE CASES

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday took serious note of the Haryana Police preparing untraced reports in large number of Jat quota violence cases of 2016.

The high court bench observed that in several cases the judicial magistrates had recorded that despite video or other evidences, the investigation was not carried out properly by police.

“We can’t allow this…every incident is unraced. They had gone on rampage, looted, burnt and you just say untraced report. How do we accept this?” the high court bench said asking as to what sort of policing was being done by the state’s force.

Earlier, impartial adviser Anupam Gupta submitted that in Rohtak, which saw maximum destruction during 2016 violence, 1,212 FIRs were registered and untraced reports have been prepared in 916 cases out of 1,084 by the police.

He also said that in Sonepat, 118 cases out of 192 registered had been shown as untraced by police. Gupta gave an example of Sonepat FIR in which 30 buses were torched, but the state had prepared an unraced report.

As the government argued that the report had been prepared but not filed before courts, the high court bench asked the state to show as to what action had been taken following these reports which were prepared months ago. It also came to light that a number of untraced reports were prepared on September 3, 2016 by the police, which HC asked the state to explain as to how untraced reports were prepared on the same date.

Government wary of Prakash Singh: HC

Gupta said the Prakash Singh report had been reduced to a “black hole”. He also demanded that an SIT be constituted under him to probe all the FIRs. He also questioned the move of the government whereby a lot of officers are now being re-instated after suspension even though they were indicted in report.

The high court bench observed that there was an attempt by the government to bypass the report.

As Gupta demanded that Singh be called in to head the SIT, HC observes that it did not have any problem. “We have no serious objection to it. They are wary of him,” the bench observed.