Probe against Roy has to go on,rules SC

Roy is currently acting state police chief; the others are DCP Shashikant Shinde (currently with the Intelligence Wing),then DCP R N Tadvi,senior inspector (now retired) Uttam Navghare of Vakola,senior inspector Vilas Pawar Kurla police station (now SP of Kolhapur),then assistant police inspector of Vakola Shridhar Hanchate and police sub-inspector Bandoo Bansode (currently API with J J Marg police station).

The policemen are charged with having used forged documents to detain Raj Awasthi under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities (MPDA) Act.

A Bandra metropolitan magistrate last year had ordered the Vakola police station to register an FIR against Roy and the other officers. The HC had in June admitted appeals filed by the policemen and granted a stay. Based on an application moved by the state government,the Supreme Court had earlier this month issued notices to all parties while staying the HC order.

The Supreme Court on Monday disposed of the special leave petition filed by Awasthi. The latest order means investigating officers will have to take action based on the metropolitan magistrate’s order.

Awasthi was detained on January 3,2006,after Roy,then the city’s police commissioner,gave his sanction relying on several documents,mostly non-cognisable complaints. Awasthi used the Right to Information Act and found out that the alleged complaint against him by one Ehsanul Jabbar Siddiqui from Kurla had never been filed with the police. Awasthi approached the metropolitan magistrate’s court seeking action against the officers for forgery.

In an affidavit filed in the HC,the police claimed that the case papers had to be reconstructed as the original complaint filed by Siddiqui had been destroyed by the widow of the investigating officer after he died in an accident in Dhule in May 2007.

According to lawyer Anjali Awasthi,the Supreme Court has observed that the DGP is not above the law and has to be treated as a common man in the investigation.

The state’s counsel in the Supreme Court,Ravindra Adsure,confirmed that the court has allowed Awasthi’s petition and has ordered filing of an FIR and an investigation into the case.