The Supreme Court on Wednesday reprimanded the Uttar Pradesh Police over irregularities in a criminal investigation while hearing a matter.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Sanjeev Sachdeva even warned the state police to hand over all the criminal cases to the CBI and disband it if the ‘nonsense’ didn’t stop.
According to Bar and Bench, the apex court made strong observations, saying the police has an agenda in everything. The remarks came while hearing a PIL filed over an incident involving a bike.
The complainant alleged that she had apprehended the rider involved in the incident and handed him over to the police, but the cops deliberately filed an FIR against an ‘unknown’ person.
The bench observed, “In everything you have an agenda. How will people trust you if this is how you proceed with matters? It is better if we ask CBI to step in all UP Police investigations. We might as well disband the UP Police. This nonsense has to stop at some point.”
The complainant has also stated that the name of the accused was added only after the intervention of the High Court, but the cops later gave him a clean chit.
The court expressed dissatisfaction with the police for not mentioning the accused’s name despite having knowledge about him. The court said that such conduct could undermine citizens’ trust in the UP Police.
“You catch the accused at the spot, but you don’t want to name him in the FIR. Perhaps if the equation works out, you can substitute the name, bring in one of your own names; you must keep a list of accused in different FIRs. Whoever has gotten a lesser number of FIRs, you can include his name. Is that how it works there?” the bench was quoted as asking by Bar and Bench.
The apex court ordered the investigating officer in charge of the case to be present at the next hearing and explain why the rider’s name was initially missing from the FIR and why it was disclosed later in the affidavit, which the court noted was uninspiring.