Surat: A local court here ordered that an offence be registered against G A Patel, police inspector (PI) of Sarthana police station, for disobeying direction under law.
Additional senior civil judge Kiritkumar Gohel issued the direction while hearing plea of a cheating victim who had approached the court alleging that police did not register his complaint despite it being a criminal case.
Court ordered that Patel be booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). It also ordered a deputy commissioner level officer to investigate the case.
According to case details, Jaydeep Nathani had approached court alleging that despite him submitting an application of cheating against his business associate on September 28, 2020, the Sarthana police did not register an FIR in the case. After a preliminary inquiry, Sarthana police had closed the case saying that the nature of the complaint was civil in nature and not criminal.
In its order, the senior civil judge observed that the preliminary inquiry should have been completed in seven days of receiving the complaint and the parameter of a preliminary inquiry should be to decide if a cognizable offence can be registered or not.
“In this case, the dispute is between two business associates and police initially found that it is a financial matter hence an offence was not registered. It seems the fault on part of the police is the inquiry was not completed within seven days. Exact details will be known only after an inquiry,” said Sajansinh Parmar, deputy commissioner of police.