RANCHI: In a significant development, the Jharkhand High Court on Wednesday expressed serious doubts over the identity of a skeleton recovered in the Bokaro missing girl case and directed senior police and forensic officials to appear in person with all relevant records.
Hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by Rekha Devi, the division bench of Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad and Justice Sanjay Prasad took on record a medical report submitted in a sealed cover by the Centre’s counsel, along with a supplementary affidavit filed by the petitioner.
During the hearing, the state informed the court that the skeletal remains of the alleged victim were recovered after the probe was handed over to a Special Investigation Team (SIT) on April 11.
During the hearing, Vincent Rohit and Shantanu Gupta, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, Rekha Devi, expressed apprehensions that the recovered human skeleton belonged to the young woman in question, while citing photographs submitted on record.
Meanwhile, the government submitted that a post-mortem examination of the skeleton would be conducted, and the process for FSL and DNA test would be initiated.
In response, the court raised questions as to why DNA testing had not been carried out despite several days having elapsed since the recovery of the skeleton, and whether samples had been collected from the young woman's parents.
The court then questioned the state on what basis it concluded that the recovered skeleton belonged to the missing girl. It also asked whether DNA samples of family members had been collected for forensic verification. The state counsel admitted that such details were not clearly mentioned in the affidavit.
The court expressed dissatisfaction over the government's failure to provide clear answers to these questions.
DGP Tadasha Mishra, while appearing virtually during the hearing, told the court that she did not have “authentic information” on whether proper forensic procedures had been followed or what exactly had been sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory.
Making strong observations, the court stated that negligence in the investigation would not be tolerated and that, if necessary, the case could be handed over to the CBI.
After hearing the arguments of the petitioner's counsel, the court directed the DGP, the Bokaro SP, the FSL Director and the newly constituted SIT to appear before it at 10:30 AM on Thursday, along with all relevant documents.
The matter will be taken up again on April 16, with senior officials required to explain the lapses and clarify the status of the investigation.
Notably, on July 24, 2025, Rekha Devi lodged a missing person complaint for her 18-year-old daughter, Pushpa Mahto, at Pindrajora police station. Despite nearly nine months of efforts, the police failed to trace her, prompting the family to move the Jharkhand High Court.
During the hearing, the court pulled up the police over their lacklustre attitude towards the case, leading to the appearance of officials from the DGP to the district SP. Following the court’s intervention, the police solved the case within a day, recovering the victim’s skeletal remains and arresting the accused.