Delhi High Court has issued an order to register an FIR against an ACP under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 as he neglected his duty by failing to give response to the court notice and conducted a partial inquiry in a criminal case.
The order has been issued by the Additional Sessions Judge Sonu Agnihotri to the Joint Commissioner of Police, Western Range, asking him to register an FIR against ACP Bijender Singh, who also acted as the Investigating Officer in the case.
The FIR is filed under Section 4 of the Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 which prescribes punishment for wilful neglect of duties by a public servant. The court has also issued direction to the joint CP to look into the matter fairly and impartially and file charge sheet if required.
The criminal case was related to the issue of parking area in a residential place. The complainant claimed that the officer did not conduct a fair investigation and had also sent some police official to his ancestral village to pressurize him into withdrawing his complaint.
The court observed that “Investigating Officer should have conducted an impartial inquiry into the matter and should have taken the statement of complainant and witnesses cited by him and arrival of the decision on the complaint should have been on basis of statements of both the sides”
The court also said that “By failing to enquire the case impartially, the officer has violated the provisions of the Act and therefore is liable to be prosecuted for dereliction of duties as required by the law”
Further the court said that “DCP Dwarka even delegated the responsibility of forwarding charge sheet to Additional DCP, Dwarka may be to evade his responsibility under the Rules or to avoid him directly being coming into the picture to save accused persons from being arrested”
Author- Aditi Dubey
