Aastha Thakur
Published on: 13 September, 2022 at 20:09 IST
The Patna High Court criticised the behaviour of police authorities in the state regarding discrepancies seen in the First Information Report (FIR) filed relating to the ill-treatment of a lawyer by a police official.
The bench of Justices Rajan Gupta and Mohit Kumar Shah was hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) initiated on the basis of a letter informing about the unfortunate incident with certain advocates by the police.
“Just imagine you are protecting a police official.. we don’t know for what reasons. You affairs are absolutely in a mess, I must say. This is the kind of treatment you are meting out to advocates“, the court remarked.
The court noted that the FIR does not contain the name of the accused police officer, even after pointing out this in the last counter statement filed by the state itself.
Further, the Court expressed its inclination to bring the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), giving them one last chance to explain their side. Hence, the Investigating Officer appointed for this case has been summoned to appear in-person on the next date of hearing.
During the hearing, amicus curiae appointed by the Court informed that the FIR still wasn’t filed against the certain accused, one Lal Bahadur Yadav, but was simply stated as “ek purush (one man)“.
The bench notes that, “It depicts absolute insensitivity on the part of the police, and a brazen act on the part of the police. This is very bad. You are the state and not obeying the law.”
The respondents were also informed that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) would be contacted to take over the case if the state agencies failed to act appropriately.
“When state agencies do not act in a proper manner, we have to call on other agencies. You have your local politics.. and do whatever you like. We’ll ask the CBI to come into the picture.”
The court had, on the previous occasion, sought a response from the police on errors in the FIR that should have been filed when a police officer named Lal Bahadur Yadav allegedly assaulted an attorney named Saket Gupta.
The bench had already made it clear that, should it determine that the police were not inclined to take any action against the official, it would consider turning the investigation over to other authority.
The case is set for the next hearing on 21 September, 2022.