Court fines SHO for not verifying death of robbery case accused

Express News Service, Sat, May 28 2011, New Delhi:

A Delhi court imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on a police officer for his failure to verify whether the accused in a robbery case was actually dead or just trying to avoid court by feigning death.

The accused, Shibu Kumar, was facing trial before the court.

“I impose a cost of Rs 10,000 on the Station House Officer (SHO) of the Keshavpuram police station. The fine shall be deducted from his salary. A copy of this order (should) be sent to the Commissioner of Police for compliance,” Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Kumar said.

On April 30, the judge had ordered the SHO to depute a sub-inspector rank official to verify if Kumar was actually dead. Facing trial for his involvement in a robbery case along with two others, Kumar was granted bail earlier but had stopped attending court as his counsel submitted that he was dead.

The court had then ordered the Keshavpuram police to verify if he was actually dead. The police, in turn, entrusted the job to a trainee police official.

The trainee official, on April 30, appeared before the court with a purported death verification report of the accused. The report, however, did not have the correct name of the accused mentioned on it.

This prompted the court to specifically ask the SHO to entrust the task to an official of sub-inspector rank so that he could produce either the mother, father, brother or wife of accused Shibu with documents to prove that he was indeed dead.

But the SHO failed to comply with the order by May 20, the next date of hearing. The court has directed the DCP (Northwest) to depute an inspector-rank official now.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/court-fines-sho-for-not-verifying-death-of-robbery-case-accused/796466/0