Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Pg (Kalipada Naskar vs The State Of West Bengal & on 17 February, 2014
Author: Dipankar Datta
Bench: Dipankar Datta
1 03 17.02.2014
W.P.28868(W) of 2013 pg (Kalipada Naskar Vs. The State of West Bengal & Ors.) Mr. Nishith Nandan Adhikary Mr. M.M. Verma Mr. A. Verma Md. Adil Badr...........for the petitioner Mr. Sakya Sen Ms. Debjani Ray .......for the State This is yet another case of shoddy investigation by the CID, West Bengal. Despite filing of charge sheet against several accused persons and an order for re- investigation passed by a learned Judge of this Court, none has been arrested despite lapse of sufficient time.
The report dated December 07, 2013 filed by the DIG, CID West Bengal reveals that upon the CID taking up investigation, the investigating officer while conducting investigation of Haroa Police Station case no. 123 of 2009 dated July 20, 2009 under sections 302/201/34 of the Indian Penal Code and Haroa Police Station case no. 240 dated November 18, 2009 under sections 364/302/ 201/384/386/120B of the Indian Penal Code had collected the case diary from the concerned criminal court, went through the same thoroughly, visited the place of occurrence, prepared rough sketch map of the place of occurrence with index, took photographs of the place of occurrence from different angles and recorded the statements of 10 persons under section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
2While accepting the prayer of Mr. Sen, learned advocate appearing for the State to grant some more time to the CID to make progress into the investigation of the aforesaid two cases, by order dated January 08, 2014 hearing of this writ petition was adjourned till February 10, 2014 to enable the CID to proceed with the investigative process and to file a further status report.
A further report dated February 07, 2014 has been filed on behalf of the investigating officer. The report does not reveal any meaningful progress of investigation of the aforesaid two cases. According to Mr. Sen, the investigating officer is busy investigating two other sensitive cases for which off and on he has to visit Gujarat. It is reported that as on date, he is in Gujarat and is due to return on February 20th next.
A further prayer for allowing the investigating officer to take the investigation to its logical conclusion is made by Mr. Sen.
It is surprising that none of the two reports filed in Court reveal any positive effort on the part of the CID to secure the arrest of the accused persons. The fact that the Public Prosecutor has filed an application under section 321 Code of Criminal Procedure before the concerned Court is suggestive of the State's disinclination to proceed against the accused. This is otherwise a fit case for constituting a Special Investigation Team (hereafter 'SIT') to probe the allegations. However, as a last chance, I 3 grant time to the investigating officer to make sincere and effective endeavour towards proper and fair investigation.
The writ petition shall be listed on March 10, 2014 under the same heading. A further status report shall be filed on that date.
It is made abundantly clear that in the unlikely event of the Court being dissatisfied with the progress of investigation, the Court may have to consider relieving the present investigating officer and to entrust the investigation to a SIT.
(DIPANKAR DATTA,J.)