The Karnataka High Court has sought the State Home Minister and the Director General of Police (DGP) to tighten the police machinery to ensure timely execution of warrants issued by courts and to report the action taken in this regard within two weeks.
A Division Bench irked with the “apathy on part of the police officials towards timely execution of non-bailable warrants (NBWs) issued to persons accused in criminal cases,” made an order to this effect on Tuesday.
The order followed a criminal appeal filed by Bellur police of Mandya district against the lower court acquittal of Puttaraju who was said to be residing in Hassan district police jurisdiction. In this case, when the accused was not traced for serving notice of the plea, the Court had issued two NBWs in Nov 2006 and  in Jan 2007. But the warrants were returned stating that the accused had vacated the house and his whereabouts were not known.
Following this, the court on July 3, 2007, had issued another NBW directing Superintendent of Police, Hassan to execute it or to explain the non-action of police. On Tuesday, Additional State Public Prosecutor informed the court that the accused was in Sakleshpur jail since June 19, 2007. The court ordered the accused to be produced before it on Aug 8 for proceeding with the appeal filed in 2005.
Noting general apathy of police officials towards timely execution of warrants, the Bench comprising Justice S R Bannurmath and Justice A S Pachhapure came down heavily on the police department.
CS’s failure
The High Court on Tuesday allowed the State Government to negotiate with parties concerned to resolve the main issue in a writ petition filed by a resident of Balaji Layout, Kodigehalli.
 The Court had taken a serious exception to Chief Secretary P B Mahishi’s repeated failures to file a ``satisfactory’’ explanation in the case for non-compliance of its 2006 order. Justice Ram Mohan Reddy adjourned hearing for two weeks.
Justice Ram Mohan Reddy hearing the petition had shown displeasure about CS’s failure to explain the reasons for the delay in filing a review petition as ordered by it to answer the issues raised in the writ petition filed by a resident of Balaji Layout, Kodigehalli. At the hearing on Tuesday, which the court had on Monday termed as a last chance for the CS to explain the delay, it heard the submissions of Advocate General (AG) Uday Holla and allowed the State government to negotiate with the parties concerned, to resolve the main issue of the case.
On Tuesday, Advocate General Uday Holla proposed to attempt a way out by holding negotiations with the residents seeking regularisation and the Housing Society seeking possession.
He requested time for the same and the Court adjourned the case to Aug 14, 2007. He explained to the court that Mahishi had come to know about Court’s September 2006 order belatedly, as he had assumed office in January 2007.
The AG also said that the government was making efforts to sort out the issue raised by the petition at the earliest, and that delay was not intentional.