Bombay High Court expresses 'sheer anguish' over police laxity in maintaining case diaries as per law

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has expressed its 'sheer anguish' over repeated instances wherein police officials do not maintain their case diaries as mandated in law despite directives issued by the Maharashtra Director General of Police to all police stations on the issue.

A division bench of Justices A S Gadkari and Neela Gokhale on Thursday while hearing a petition pertaining to quashing of a case said this was yet another classic example where the police has acted in utter defiance of section 172(1-B) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) which says that the diary containing the day-to-day entry of the proceedings in the probe has to be duly paginated.

In January as well, the bench had raised the same concern while hearing another matter. Pursuant to that, the Maharashtra Director General of Police had issued a circular directing all police officers to ensure that the case diaries of each and every case are maintained as per provisions of law.

The bench had on Thursday called for the case diary of the case, but found that the same was maintained in a "most shabby manner" and not in a bound volume.

The court in its order said it appears that the circular and directions issued by the DGP has not percolated to the lower rank of police officers, who are on the field.

"It appears to us that the investigating officers are either ignorant of the circular or are feigning ignorance to it," the bench said.

The court said while it can understand that the police may not be aware of the provisions of the law, it cannot accept a situation where police officers are not aware of the circulars issued by the DGP, who is the head of their institution.

"We are making these observations out of sheer anguish, since repeatedly we come across such blatant contraventions of the circulars issued by the DGP as well as other statutory requirements," the bench said.

The court ordered for the case diary of the Kherwadi police station to be forwarded to the DGP for appropriate action.

"We direct the DGP to take appropriate remedial action and to ensure strict compliance at least of its own circulars by all the police officers in the state," the HC said.

The bench directed the DGP to submit a detailed report on June 28.