Notices to 8 officials over shoddy probe in road rage case

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan High Court on Thursday issued notices to eight senior officials, including the additional chief secretary of home, Rajasthan DGP, Jaipur police commissioner Sanjay Agarwal and Jaipur DCP North Satydenra Singh, over a petition alleging shoddy and mala fide investigations into a road rage case.

A single bench of Justice Deepak Maheshwari issued the notices on the petition moved by one Sanjay Gupta, the victim of road rage in the city, through his counsel A K Jain. Gupta told high court that on December 21, 2017, he was returning from work on his two-wheeler when a speeding car took a turn a without giving any indicator or any other signal and threw him off balance.

As per the petition, when Gupta confronted the people seated inside the car, one person who identified himself as Satya Dutt came out and beat him up, as a result of which his spectacles broke and he started bleeding from the nose. Gupta went to the Jawahar Circle police station, in whose jurisdiction area the crime was committed, and submitted a written report to SHO Rajesh Soni.

The petitioner told high court that Soni not only delayed filing the FIR but also registered it in a mala fide manner. "Despite the prompt complaint, no immediate efforts were made to apprehend accused persons and seize the car," the petitioner told court. "The SHO and the Investigating officer (IO) exerted undue and unwarranted pressure upon the complainant to reach a compromise in the matter," the court was told.

The petitioner claimed that a conspiracy was hatched to save the guilty persons from he legal punishment and the police commissioner and the investigation officer (IO) tried to deceive the trial court as a charge-sheet was filed against only one person named Satish Kumar and that too only for the commission of offences without getting him identified by the complainant.

The petitioner told high court said that he had come to know that the accused persons were well connected with senior police officers. "In fact, Satya Dutt who is named in the FIR is related to Satyendra Singh, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (North)," the court was told. The petitioner alleged that an unfair probe was conducted with an aim to save those involved in the road rage incident.