HC gives Maharashtra 15 days to chargesheet police officers

Mumbai, Nov 21 (UNI) The Bombay High Court today observed there was total negligence on part of the Maharashtra government in the Sayyad Khwaja Yunus murder case in shielding some of the accused policemen and directed the State CID to complete formalities of obtaining sanction to prosecute the guilty police officers and file a chargesheet within 15 days.

A division bench, comprising Justice R M S Khandeparkar and Justice Amjad Sayyad, said it was a clear case of misleading the Court, while coming down heavily on Public Prosecutor Satish Borulkar for concealing the fact of pending B-summary report in a local court at Parner in Ahemednagar district, till the point of deciding on grant of sanction to prosecute police officers arose in the High Court.

The State government had last time cited pending B-summary report in the Parner court as reason for not deciding on point of sanction to prosecute the erring policemen. Today, when petition of Khwaja's mother Asiya Begum came up for hearing, the Public Prosecutor again informed the judges that a sessions court in Ahamadnagar has stayed the order of granting B-summary on the plea filed by the aggrieved partes and cited that as a reason for not giving any decision on point of sanction.

But, the judges were angered when they found that the two cases, though connected but were not directly linked with each other and observed that, the state machinery was just attempting to mislead the court and buying time, apparently, to shield some of the accused policemen.

Borulkar informed the court that the state CID would go ahead with the Ghatkopar police station case registered against some officers and staff of Ghatkopar Crime Branch and take necessary steps within fifteen days.

While accepting his statement, the judges directed the concerned Adhoc Session judge in Ahmednagar to decide the revision application against grant of B-summary within six weeks and submit his report to the High Court.

Khwaja's mother Asiya Begum had moved the court seeking compensation of Rs five lakh for his alleged custodial death, after the high court, on April 7, 2004, directed the State CID to treat statement of a co-accused Dr Abdul Matin Abdul Basit as FIR.

Accordingly, another FIR came to be filed against more than 15 personnel from Ghatkopar crime branch under Section 302. The State CID has already completed the investigations into the alleged murder of the Bomb Blast accused and DGP P S Pasricha has forwarded it to the State Home Department for sanction to prosecute policemen involved in the case.

The Police was claiming that Khwaja ran away taking undue advantage of an accident involving the police vehicle in which he was being taken to Aurangabad, for investigation into the Ghatkopar Bomb Blast Case of December 2002. The incident, according to police officials, took place on January 7, 2003, near Parner, in Nagar District. Whereas Khwaja's family suspects that he was killed while he was in police custody.

UNI