Apex Court stays action against Thane cops
The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Bombay High Court judgment ordering a departmental action against Thane police officials involving a probe against advocate Rizwan Siddiqui, who was accused of illegally possessing call detail records (CDRs) of actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s wife Anjali.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice AM Khanwilkar, however, issued a notice to lawyer Rizwan Siddiqui and asked him to file his reply in the matter within four weeks. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi and advocate Nishant Katneshwar appeared for the State government and sought a stay of the Bombay High Court order of March 21 in which it had held that in arresting advocate Rizwan Siddiquee, the Thane police had acted in a “high-handed” manner and failed to follow “due process of law”. Advocate CA Sundaram appeared for Rizwan Siddiqui.
The Thane police challenged the High Court order whether the impugned order is against the law laid down by the court in case of Saurabh Kumar vs Jailor, Koneila Jail; whether the High Court has erred in disposing off the writ petition without affording sufficient opportunity to the petitioners to put forth their case; whether the impugned order is not according to law for want of any condition and whether the High Court has considered the consequences on the morale of the police force while passing the impugned order.
According to Abhishek Trimukhe, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Thane Crime Branch, “We have challenged the High Court order. The Supreme Court has given four weeks to advocate Rizwan Siddiqui to file a say in the form of an affidavit. The next hearing is on July 2.”
In March, a Special Leave Petition was filed before the High Court by Rizwan’s wife Tasneem under Article 136 of the Constitution of India challenging the final judgment and order date passed by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay in Writ Petition No 1353 of 2018, whereby the High Court disposed of the writ petition that the police had grossly abused the powers granted to them and misused their powers with the sole aim and intention to cause excessive mental torture, trauma and harassment to advocate Rizwan is absolutely illegal and unlawful and has not been backed up by any provision of the law, which makes it prima facie apparent that the respondents are acting with malafide intentions and ulterior motives for reasons best known to them.