NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is scheduled to adjudicate on April 17, a plea filed by a senior police officer seeking to quash a rape case filed against him after the delay of ten years. The FIR was allegedly registered at a different place, away from where the crime had taken place.
The accused, Somesh Kumar Mishra, a former trainee DSP presently working as DSP in Bihar's Gopalganj, has filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the top court seeking to quash the FIR against him. Mishra moved SC after the Patna High Court in 2022 refused to quash the FIR against him.
According to the prosecution, Mishra is accused of sexually assaulting the victim at gunpoint between the years 2009 and 2012.
According to Mishra's lawyer Shailendra Mani Tripathi, the case against him was initiated without the due process of law.
"The case has been initiated without the lodging of an FIR, which is contrary to legal requirements. And also there is no content prescribed in the FIR. The proceedings are not in accordance with the law. The FIR indicates that the distance from the place of occurrence to the police station is 2 kilometers. However, it has been alleged that the incident took place in Delhi," Tripathy alleged.
"Furthermore, there are no allegations pertaining to Bhagalpur in the entire report. The police, without any jurisdiction, conducted an arbitrary investigation and then filed a charge sheet in the Sessions Court, Bhagalpur," he said.
Mishra in his plea, stated that the police inquiry against him was conducted without following the due process of law. According to Mishra's plea, instead of approaching a police station and filing a complaint, the victim had sent an email to the Bihar police academy Rajgir in 2019, which was forwarded by the DIG to the additional DGP and Deputy Director of Bihar Police.
Following this, the additional DGP ordered the DIG to submit an inquiry report within a week. As part of the inquiry, the victim was asked by the police to come to the police academy in Rajgir. On January 25, 2020, the victim along with her husband, appeared before the sexual harassment committee at Bihar police academy and informed that the said incident had happened a decade ago.
The plea stated that following this, instead of lodging the FIR in Delhi, where the offense occurred, the police registered a case at Bihar's Bhagalpur on March 20, 2020. Mishra was arrested in November 2020, and was granted bail the next month.
Claiming that the allegations against him are baseless and fabricated with an intent to ruin his life and career, Mishra alleged that he had been targeted at a time when he was trying to settle in life with his dream job and thinking of starting a family life.
"The FIR is based on false and fabricated facts, as such, the same is liable to be quashed. There was a substantial delay (about a decade) in lodging the FIR and no plausible explanation regarding this has been given. Delay in lodging the FIR, itself shows that it is done after much thought and consultation, due to mala-fide intention," he alleged.