In a unique instance, a police officer of Station Bazaar Police station in Kalaburagi has been asked to clean a public road in front of the police station for a week for failing to do his duty of registering First Information Report (FIR) when a woman approached the station stating that her son had been abducted.
“I am ready to comply with the direction issued by the court. I render my unconditional apology for not registering the FIR and assure the court that I will not repeat this in future,” the Station House Officer (SHO) gave a written undertaking to the court.
A Division Bench comprising Justice S. Sunil Dutt Yadav and Justice P. Krishna Bhat passed the order recently at the Kalaburagi Bench of the High Court, directing the SHO to comply with the undertaking while disposing of a habeas corpus petition filed by 55-year-old Tarabai of Manja Tanda in Kalaburagi.
The Bench observed that the SHO had failed to either make note in the diary or register a FIR as per the mandatory requirements in law though he was conscious that a cognisable offence of abduction was committed.
“The entire development in the case after the petitioner’s son went missing discloses to us a very disturbing facet of the functioning of the police stations in this area of the State. The problem, primarily, is one of police officers not complying with the procedure prescribed under the Code of Criminal Procedure, which places a high premium on the guarantee of liberty of the individuals,” the Bench observed in its order.
The government counsel, appearing for the SHO, admitted that there lenient view may be taken for the violation of the procedure notwithstanding the serious implications for the liberty of the petitioner’s son while stating that the SHO was prepared to file an undertaking to do some community service to atone for the same.
Accepting the undertaking, the Bench directed the Superintendent of Police, Kalaburagi district, to hold a workshop or orientation course for all police officers working within the district on the subject of FIRs as per the apex court’s guidelines.
The Bench closed the petition as the petitioner’s son Suresh was produced before the court.
