Gangrape case: Police Comm asked to take action against IO

The Delhi Police Commissioner has been directed by a court here to take action against a woman official for allegedly pressurising the complainant in a gangrape case lodged against two persons.

Additional Sessions Judge Kaveri Baweja said the prosecution case was nothing but a "jumbled compilation of facts bits of evidence" which cannot be categorised as "credible" and acquitted the two men by giving them benefit of doubt in the gangrape case.

The judge freed Allahabad resident Hawan Pratap Singh and Bihar native Pintu Kumar saying, "I am constrained to hold that the prosecution has also failed to prove the alleged place of incident which, to my mind, is extremely fatal to the case of the prosecution."

"The facts brought on record during trial has falsified the very basis of the case of the prosecution inasmuch as the victim has denied that she even knows the contents of her complaint on the basis of which the FIR was registered.

"She has time and again stated before the court that she has been pressurised by the investigating officer (IO) / Inspector Meera Sharma at various stages of investigation," the court said.

"Keeping in view the observation based on evidence brought on record during trial, I am constrained to direct the Commissioner of Police, Delhi to initiate an inquiry into the allegations made against Inspector Meera Sharma.

"The action taken be communicated to this court within two weeks from the date of receipt of this judgment. A copy of this judgment be sent to Commissioner of Police for necessary information and compliance," the judge said.

According to the prosecution, the 16-year-old girl was gangraped by the two men, alleged to be railway officials, in a room in New Delhi Railway Station here in September 2012.
The girl along with her sister had told the police that she had met one of the two men at the railway station and he had deposited their luggage in the cloak room as they had to go somewhere.

When they returned to the cloak room to collect the luggage, the victim's sister kept waiting for her in an auto while the girl went with the accused inside the railway station. The girl alleged that she was taken to a room where she was gangraped by the two accused who also threatened to kill her.

During the trial, the two men claimed that they were falsely implicated in the case. Pintu alleged that the girl had called him to meet her at a hotel in Paharganj where they established physical relations with her consent and later on she implicated him in the false case to extort money.

The court noted that it was apparent that the accused were called to the police station and arrested in the case without there being any basis for implicating them.
It said as per the testimony of the girl, she did not even know their names though they were mentioned in the complaint.

Noting the lapses on the part of the IO, the court said an attempt was made to conceal some parts of the CCTV recordings of the railway station and selective videos were brought before the court as evidence.

"The most striking fact which has featured in the evidence during trial is that apparently one of the assailants was let off by the IO (Sharma), though as per the girl, he was caught. This matter is extremely serious," the judge said.

The court also said the entire case of the prosecution that the alleged incident took place in a room at PG side of the railway station becomes "doubtful".

"The testimony of the IO has also come under cloud in view of consistent testimony of the girl and her sister that she was pressurized throughout the process of investigation by the IO," it said.