Firozabad: To her surprise, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Nagma Khan found out one day that she had been declared a proclaimed offender. What’s more was that the written proclamation declaring her an absconder was issued by none other than herself.
A preliminary enquiry revealed that the apparent error was on the part of a sub-inspector with the Kotwali North police station in Firozabad who has since been attached to police lines pending a departmental enquiry.
Proceedings here relate to a case of theft dating back to 2012. Hearing the case, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Nagma Khan at an earlier hearing ordered that prime accused Rajkumar alias Pappu be declared a proclaimed offender on account of his failure to turn himself in despite repeated summonses. An order of proclamation was thereafter issued under Section 82 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to that effect.
The not-so-complicated task of pasting the proclamation order outside Rajkumar’s address on record was entrusted to SI Banwarilal, who appears to have mistaken the name of the judge who issued the order with that of the prime accused. He even wrote in his warrant execution report submitted to the court, “… we searched for Nagma Khan extensively at the stated address but found out that no person by that name lives there…”
When the case came up for hearing on 23 March and SI Banwarilal’s report was placed before the court, judge Nagma Khan termed his an act of “gross dereliction of duty” and “complete disregard of procedural discipline”.
“It is extremely strange that the concerned police officer does not even know against whom the proclamation order has been issued, who has issued it and for what purpose. In such a situation, it can be assumed that he did not read the order or deliberately ignored it,” she said in her order.
The judge added that, if such negligence was ignored, it would not only pose a serious threat to fundamental rights of the general public, but also dent the credibility of the judiciary. “If such careless police officers are left without consequences, they can arbitrarily violate the freedom of anyone. This situation is extremely dangerous for the rule of law.”
Further, the judge noted that it was worrying that some police officers were unable to interpret even basic sections of the CrPC, terming it a “serious flaw in the administrative system”. The judge also pointed out that SI Banwarilal “carelessly mentions the proclamation as an NBW (non-bailable warrant) and he just wrote the name of the presiding officer quite blindly”.
“Neglect without impunity seems to be the order of the day,” the judge remarked.
Copies of the judge’s order have been sent to the Director General of Police (DGP), Uttar Pradesh, the Inspector General of Police (IG), Agra Range, and the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Firozabad. Acting on the judge’s remarks, SP (Firozabad) Saurabh Dixit placed SI Banwarilal under suspension and ordered a departmental enquiry to ascertain whether his actions were intentional or a result of lack of training.
SP (City) Ravi Shankar Prasad confirmed to ThePrint that the police department has examined the erroneous warrant execution report prepared by SI Banwarilal and an enquiry has been ordered into the matter. Meanwhile, the court has fixed 26 April as the date for the next hearing. Instructions have been issued to the police department to prepare an action taken report in this regard by the time of the next hearing.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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