Telangana HC sends IPS officer, three other cops to jail for contempt

The Telangana High Court has sentenced four police officials including an IPS officer to four weeks imprisonment in a contempt of court case. Justice G Radha Rani, who awarded the jail term to them on Monday, also imposed a fine of Rs 2,000 on each of them. The court also directed the Hyderabad Commissioner of Police to initiate disciplinary action against Additional Commissioner (Crimes) A R Srinivas (who was then Deputy Commissioner of Police), besides an Assistant Commissioner of Police, an Inspector and Sub-Inspector of Police of Hyderabad Police Commissionerate.

The court suspended the sentence for six weeks to enable them to go for appeal. The order states that one of the officers "deliberately and wilfully concealed the representation of the petitioners and not served notice on them and wrongly appraised the Magistrate that the petitioners were absconding and wrongly got  NBWs (non-bailable warrants) issued against them, he is liable to be punished."

The order also mentioned the role of the other officers. "As the 3rd respondent was the officer-in-charge of the police station under whose guidance the investigation was conducted by the 4th respondent and the 2nd respondent was the forwarding authority of the Look Out Circular and the 1st respondent was the authority who issued the Look Out Circular against the petitioners without confirming the fact whether notice under Section 41A CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure) was served upon the petitioners in terms of the judgment in Arnesh Kumar’s case (1 supra) and the said authorities deliberately ignored the e-mails, WhatsApp messages sent to them by the 1st petitioner."

The contempt of court petition was filed by a 49-year old man and his mother, who now reside in Thailand. They alleged that in a dowry harassment and domestic violence case (which was filed against them by the man's wife in 2019), no notices were issued to them under section 41A of the CrPC by the police and the chargesheet was filed. The case, registered at the Jubilee Hills police station, was booked under Sections 498-A, 506 of the Indian Penal Code, Dowry Prohibition Act and Arms Act. The petitioners had sought to initiate appropriate action against the police officials for violation of Supreme Court guidelines while dealing with a marital dispute case.