J&K: A local court here has registered a case against a senior IPS officer for allegedly undermining the authority of the court by defying several of its orders in connection with a criminal case.
The court accused the IPS officer of repeated inaction, omission, non-execution of warrants and non-cooperation.
“This court hereby takes the judicial notice of commission of offence under Section 24, read with Section 29, of the Police Act and on its own motion/knowledge, (suo moto) registers the case under Section 210 (1) (C) of BNSS, 2023 against Dr G V Sundeep Chakravarthy, IPS, Senior Superintendent of police, Srinagar…” Judicial Magistrate Tarun Mahajan said.
“It is clear that SSP Srinagar (Chakravarty) has a habit of sitting over the warrants issued by this court and SSP Srinagar has not only defied the orders of this court once but thrice …. and same shows that SSP Srinagar has undermined the authority of this court and prima facie abdicated from his duty to execute orders/warrants as were entrusted to him in different cases,” the court said.
Due to the non-cooperation on the part of the SSP Srinagar, the court was constrained to proceed first against SSP Srinagar as “prima facie he appears guilty of commission of offence under Section 24 of the Police Act, 1961.
Giving details of the events that led to registration of the case, the court said it had directed SHO Bandipora to arrest an accused — Ajaz Ahmad Lone — in February this year.
On the next date of hearing on March 2, the SHO had neither executed the warrant nor submitted a report. The court again directed SHO Bandipora to execute the warrant.
In the event of non-execution, the SHO Bandipora was directed to remain present in person on the next date of hearing on April 17.
“On April 17 again, neither warrant was executed, nor any report was furnished by SHO Bandipora and even SHO Bandipora was absent despite the order of personal appearance and even no exemption was sought, either orally or in writing,” the court said.
Therefore, in view of repeated disobedience, a bailable warrant was issued against SHO Bandipora to be executed through SSP Bandipora who was directed to arrest the accused therein and produce him before the court on the next date of hearing on May 7, the court said.
On May 7, there was total non-compliance of the previous order again: no warrants were executed, no report was furnished by SDPO Bandipora as well as SSP Bandipora, it said.
Therefore, the court directed SSP Srinagar to arrest SHO Bandipora and produce him before the court, saying the “whole machinery of Bandipora was not responding”.
“SDPO Bandipora was directed to arrest the accused, failing which SDPO Bandipora shall remain present before the court on June 8,” the court added.
On the next date of hearing, neither SDPO Bandipora nor SSP Srinagar submitted any report, nor were warrants executed by either of them. The court repeated the directions and posted the matter for June 30.
On June 30, SDPO Bandipora and SSP Srinagar failed to execute warrants respectively entrusted to them, it said.
“The above scenario shows that the whole police machinery of district Srinagar as well as district Bandipora has collapsed. This court is amazed and surprised that why the warrant of SHO Bandipora has not been executed till date either by SSP Bandipora or by SSP Srinagar,” the court added.
