Court orders inquiry against IO, ACP, SHO for faulty probe

A Delhi court has rapped several police officials, including the investigating officer in a sexual harassment case, saying they were either not competent to hold their posts or they "deliberately" tried to shield the accused, who was given a clean chit by them.
Metropolitan Magistrate Shivani Chauhan made the observation in view of "glaring deficiencies" in the probe of the case in which the IO filed a cancellation report and the SHO of the police station concerned and the area ACP approved it "without any application of mind".
"There are several glaring deficiencies in investigation of the present FIR. It appears that the cancellation report was prepared by the IO without any application of mind and without conducting any inquiries or investigation.

"The concerned ACP, the SHO and the concerned Additional Public Prosecutor(APP) have also forwarded the cancellation report without any application of mind," the magistrate said.
"In view of the above observations, only two presumptions arise i.E, either these officers are not competent to hold the post which is being officiated by them or the same was done with a view to shield the accused from due process of law," the court said.
The magistrate sent a notice to Delhi Police Commissioner to initiate departmental inquiry against all the police officials concerned and sought an action taken report by the next date of hearing on May 20.

"In these peculiar circumstances, the court is constrained to send notice to the Commissioner of Police with request to initiate appropriate departmental inquiries against all the concerned officers and forward action taken report in this court on next date," the magistrate said.

The court pulled up the investigating officer (IO) saying he prepared all the reports while sitting at the police station and it appeared that he did not even attempt to serve the summons on the accused as there was no proof of the same.
The court said, "These circumstances gives rise to the
presumption that the IO never attempted to execute the process issued by the Court and all reports were prepared by him sitting at the police station. From this serious doubts arise as to the competence of the IO to officiate the position which he is holding at present."

"The circumstances also give rise to the presumption that the IO is deliberately trying to shield the accused person," it said.
The accused was issued summons on February 9 which remained unserved to him. The IO of the case had submitted that summons could not be served as the accused had already left for Ireland for completing his studies.
Thereafter, the court issued bailable warrants against the accused to be executed through the IO which have also remained unexecuted, the magistrate noted.
The court, however, relied on the documents which revealed that the visa of the accused was valid from March 7 to July 12 hence he could not have left for Ireland before March 7.

"Thus, under ordinary circumstances, the summons should have been duly served upon accused, if attempted," it said.
The court has now issued non-bailable warrant against the accused to be executed through DCP concerned.
The complainant in the case, a resident of CR Park here, had alleged that the accused used to send her inappropriate messages and stalked her in 2014.