The Karnataka High Court (HC) recently directed a Station House Officer (SHO) to clean the road in front of the police station he is in charge of for one week.
According to the reports, the SHO of Bazar Police station in Kalburgi was asked to do the community service for failing to register an FIR in connection with a kidnapping complaint.
The Kalaburgi bench of the Karnataka High Court issued the order on December 17 after petitioner Tarabai moved a habeas corpus petition contending that her son Suresh had gone missing on October 20, 2020.
A division bench of Justice S Sunil Dutt Yadav and Justice P Krishna Bhat while hearing a habeas corpus petition said that the entire development in the case after Suresh going missing disclosed that it was a very disturbing facet of the functioning of the police stations in this area of the State.
The court observed that the problem, primarily, is one of the police officers not complying with the procedure prescribed under the Code of Criminal Procedure, which places a high premium on the guarantee of liberty of the individuals.
The High Court also observed that SHO admitted that the petitioner had approached him in the police station with a grievance that her son had been abducted and thereafter he was not found.
Police personnel undertook to do some community service, court obliges
The Government advocate requested the court to take a lenient view of the case for the said violation of the procedure and further submitted that the police officer is prepared to file an undertaking to do some community service to atone for the same.
The police personnel filed the undertaking that read, “I the undersigned do hereby state that, as per the direction of the Hon’ble Court, I am ready to comply with the direction issued by the Hon’ble Court by cleaning the road in front of my Police Station for one week. That I render my unconditional apology for not registering the First Information Report and assure the Hon’ble Court that I will not repeat the same in the future”.
The court accepted the same and directed him to comply with the same. The Karnataka HC bench also directed the district superintendent of police to hold a workshop/orientation course to all the police officers working within the Kalaburagi District on the subject of “zero FIR”.
Following the controversial judgement, the Kalaburgi City Commissioner Satish said that they will file an appeal on the order given. We feel there were no lapses from our end, he added.