Court questions integrity of cops’ informers

New Delhi, June 12: A Delhi court has questioned the integrity of secret informers, who inform the police about criminals, saying a person having so much of information on such offenders needs to be probed on his motive in sharing it.

Additional sessions judge Sunil K. Aggarwal also said that a person having such a “smart network” cannot be taken to be a good Samaritan and he might have been involved in illegal activities previously.

The court’s observation came while deciding a case in which Okhla resident Khurram was sentenced to three years in jail for illegally possessing a country-made pistol.

He was apprehended along with two others in 2006 by a police team, upon a secret information, while allegedly planning to rob a petrol pump near Rohini metro station.

The accused were nabbed after a secret informer had told the police the exact location, motorcycle number, colour of the vehicle and other relevant details of the accused.

Wondering how the secret informer knew all such details of the accused, the court said, “It needs to be examined as to what extent a fiction of secret information can be believed and secret informer kept behind the curtain. The one having so much of exact information about criminals needs to be inquired about his own motive in sharing it with police other than the likely incentive from so called ‘secret fund’.”

It further said, “A person having so smart a network cannot be taken to be good Samaritan. He may well have been associated with the accused persons at some earlier point of time or involved in other illegal/criminal activities.”

Besides sentencing, the court also imposed a fine of `5,000 on Khurram, who was accused of firing at the police team in an escape bid.