LUCKNOW: The Allahabad High Court dismissed the petition filed by the suspended Station House Officer (SHO) Dinesh Kumar Verma seeking to quash criminal proceedings against him in connection with Hathras gang rape and murder case of a Dalit girl in 2020.
The suspended SHO was booked over allegations of dereliction of duty.
The High Court bench, comprising Justice Raj Beer Singh, condemned the SHO's conduct as it took into account both procedural violations and a glaring lack of sensitivity in handling the case of the 19-year-old Dalit girl.
The accused, who was the then SHO, is currently facing the CBI chargesheet for offences under sections 166A(b)(c) and 167 of the India Penal Code.
In fact, as per the chargesheet, the petitioner is accused of failing to stop the media from approaching the victim and capturing her photographs and video inside the police station, despite it being his duty to safeguard the dignity of a victim of a sexual offence.
Moreover, he also refused to take the severely injured victim to the hospital, either via a police vehicle or ambulance. Instead, he is accused of compelling the family to arrange a shared auto-rickshaw for transport despite the availability of police vehicles.
He is also accused of getting false entries made in the general diary, including the claims that a lady constable was sent to examine the victim's injuries. However, the constable arrived only after the victim was taken to the hospital.
The CBI chargesheet also claimed that false entries were made stating that there were no injuries on the victim’s body without examining them. He even failed to register a case on the basis of the victim's statement.
Concluding that the petitioner did not act as per the law, rules and guidelines, CBI filed a chargesheet against him, challenging which he had moved HC.
At the outset, the HC bench discarded the argument against instant maintainability of the instant plea, observing that the availability of an alternate remedy of filing an appeal was not an absolute bar in entertaining a petition under Section 482 CrPC.
The court said that while the video of the victim shot by the applicant on his mobile established that it was a case of molestation and he failed to protect the identity of the victim and did not stop any media person from contacting her, taking her pictures and making her video, thereby, violating the SOP of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
In the second observation, the court said that false entries made in the general diary claiming that the lady constable had gone to examine the victim, which was not the case, were found to be untrue.
Significantly, the court specifically referred to Section 44 of the Police Act as applicable to Uttar Pradesh, which provides that it is the duty of every officer in charge of a police station to keep general diary and to make true entries in it. Thus, noting that at this stage, it is not required to conduct a mini-trial, the court dismissed the plea.