The Bombay High Court recently asked the Director General of Police (DGP) to ensure that “the directions issued by his office pertaining to maintenance of ‘case diary’ as per Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and relevant circulars are followed by his subordinate officers and/or the lower rank officers in its proper spirit, without giving any lame excuses.” A case diary is a record of daily investigation into a case to be maintained by investigation officers. The bench expressed displeasure over multiple cases, wherein police stations have not followed requisite procedures in maintaining case diaries as per Section 172 of Cr PC and said that court was prompted to refer to such cases to DGP. However, there was no improvement. A division bench of Justice Ajey S Gadkari and Shivkumar G Dige on August 19 was hearing a writ plea by senior management officials of Motilal Oswal Financial Services Limited who were alleged to have outraged modesty of the complainant woman, a senior official of the firm. The woman was placed under suspension in March, 2022 on receiving complaints by the management, after which she registered an FIR against the petitioners in May, 2022. An independent inquiry by an external committee was ordered in the matter. On June 10 last year, the HC, while stating that while the probe will go on, had granted interim relief to the petitioners from coercive action and the same was continued from time to time. On August 18, the HC had perused a case diary of the said crime and had observed that it was maintained in contravention of Section 172(1B) (due pagination of the diary) of the CrPC and also in utter disregard to the circulars issued by DGP in January, 2017 and December, 2018. On August 19, the bench noted that it is "yet another case" of case diary not maintained as per law and observed, "It appears to us that, the circulars issued by the DGP have not reached to the lower rank officers of the police department in Maharashtra. On at least three occasions, we have referred such cases to the office of the DGP. However there is no improvement till date." On August 19, the bench observed that by misinterpreting June, 2022 HC order, the police officers failed to take the probe to its logical end in over a year. "It was abundantly made clear that the investigation of the present crime may go on. However, no coercive steps were to be adopted against the petitioners. We were informed that the said paragraph has been interpreted as ‘no investigation at all’ to be carried out further and therefore the Investigating Officer has not taken the investigation to its logical end in more than one year. We are aghast to hear such submissions. Order dated June 10, 2022 is in plain language and requires no further interpretation on that behalf," the HC observed. Observing this, the bench requested DGP to personally peruse the record of investigation in the present crime along with the case diary, “which is maintained in the form of loose sheets” and adopt appropriate remedial measures as per law in that regard. The bench said that it was expected from the DGP, who is the highest police authority in the state, to ensure his directions are strictly followed by his subordinate officers within three weeks from the date of order. The bench has posted the next hearing on September 13.
