The judgment establishes the principle that thorough and impartial investigations, especially in cases involving police officers, are essential for upholding the integrity of the legal system and ensuring accountability.

JUDGMENT :

By this petition, the petitioner, who is the father of a college going daughter killed in an accident in which respondent No.6 is an accused, has put forth prayer clauses (B), (C) and (D) as under :-

“B. By issuing Writ of Certiorari/Mandamus or any other Writ, order or directions in the like nature, the respondent No.6 and his accomplice be arrested and the investigation in the matter bearing Crime No.156/2019 dated 23-4-2019 registered with the City Chowk Police Station, Aurangabad be transferred to Crime Investigation Department or to some other Investigative Agency under the supervision of this Hon’ble Court.

C. By issuing writ of Certiorari / Mandamus or any other writ or order or directions in the like nature, the Respondent Nos. 1 to 3 be directed to conduct impartial inquiry in the matter bearing Crime No. 156/2019 dated 23-4-2019 registered with the City Chowk Police Station, Aurangabad and take necessary actions against the erring Police Officer etc.

D. By issuing Writ of Certiorari / Mandamus or any other writ or order or directions in the like nature the Respondent Nos. 1 to 3 be directed to initiate necessary action against the Respondent No.6, who has intentionally killed the Petitioner’s daughter namely Akefa Mehrin and also against the other Police Officials trying to cover up the matter with an intention to give clean chit to the Respondent No.6.”

2. On 11-12-2020, this Court had passed the following order :—

“1. In response to the order made by this Court on 24-11-2020, today, the learned APP has produced on record the papers of investigation and the case diary.

2. This Court has carefully gone through the papers of investigation and case diary. In the papers of investigation, there are statements of the eyewitnesses showing that on the same day and on the next day, the eyewitnesses had given account of the accident and it was informed that one grey colour Swift Desire was involved in the accident. The papers show that on 2-5-2020, the car was taken in custody during investigation. Surprisingly, panchanama of seizure of car was not prepared. Due to that it is not possible to ascertain even the colour of the car. The record shows that the car was referred for technical examination to the RTO and it came to be examined on 9-5-2020 i.e. very late.

3. When one four wheeler gives dash to a two wheeler, no damage is ordinarily caused to the four wheeler. It appears that after giving dash to the two wheeler of the deceased, the deceased was virtually ran over by the car and the driver of the four wheeler had escaped from the spot. Thus, not only the offence of causing the accident and causing death was committed, but other offences of not taking care of the deceased and not informing to the police about the incident are also committed by the said driver of the four wheeler.

4. In view of the nature of allegations and nature of report which the Investigating Agency has filed, this Court had made specific order on 24-11-2020 and due to this, some record like case diary and papers of investigation are produced.

5. It appears that there are allegations that one Police Sub-Inspector was driving the four wheeler at the relevant time. Even when there are allegations against the Police Officer, no seriousness is shown by the Investigating Agency. This Court has no hesitation to observe that when there are allegations against some person of the department, more care needs to be taken by the Investigating Officer and such officer needs to be always above the board. Such officer is not expected to protect the person of his own department but he needs to be more serious as the image of the department is involved in such matters. Due to observations made by this Court today, affidavit of some of the witnesses are produced by the petitioner and they show the seriousness of the offence committed by the driver of the swift car. There is nothing to show that the witnesses have falsely implicated the said Police Sub Inspector.

6. Du