Probe officer failed to appear in court for 12 years in ‘fake encounter’ case in MP

Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Wednesday pulled up the state after an investigating officer working on an alleged fake encounter case failed to appear in a special court for 12 years, The Indian Express reported.

The court has imposed a cost of Rs 1 lakh on the state alongside terming the laxity “nothing but insensitivity on the part of the police department”.

It all began after a 56-year-old Vimla Devi alleged on April 22, 2005 that the local SHO from Dabra Police Station and other officers from the area had taken her three son to the station.

Keeping her third son Khushali Ram in police custody, her two sons, Balkishan and Kalli, were released on April 27.

Later she discovered from a newspaper clipping about her son’s death which called him ‘a dacoit carrying a reward and killed along with another dacoit in a police encounter.’

The newspaper, according to her, identified her son in the photograph as “Kalia alias Brijkishore”.

Subsequently a magisterial probe was ordered in 2007 and later it was concluded based on police report that “Kalia alias Brijkishore is alive and lodged at District Jail, Jhansi.

However, Vimla Devi sought investigation accusing officers including MK Mudgal, then the SP, Datia and other police personnel of killing her son in a fake encounter.

Meanwhile, the trial court had earlier asked the state to pay Rs 20,000 for inaction over her son’s death, The Indian Express reported.

A bench of Justices Vivek Rusia and Rajendra Kumar Vani earlier this month said, ‘A final closure report… is required to be examined by the special court’.

‘The order sheets reveal there is a delay in considering the closure report as investigating officer Virendra Kumar Mishra has not appeared before the special court since 2012. As per the latest status report, he is posted as SP, Datia. Surprisingly, he could not get one or two days time to appear before the court since 2012. Most of the time, he remained on deputation but did not care to appear before the special court so that the learned session court could examine the closure report. The petitioner expired awaiting justice from the court. It is said that even the cost of Rs 20,000 has not been paid to the petitioner to date,’ the bench was quoted as saying.

‘There is no explanation given by the police before the writ court, as well as before this court, why no action was taken on the complaint made by the petitioner about the missing of her son,’ it further said.