Supreme Court seeks police response in Manchanda case, calls on Gurugram top cop

The court questioned why a missing-person FIR was not registered earlier and why the recovered body’s details were absent from CCTNS.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought responses from the Haryana and Delhi police into the murder of Delhi resident Yuvraj Singh Manchanda in Gurugram, and the cremation of his remains—amid a missing person’s case filed in Delhi—without uploading details on the common police portal to track missing persons.

The Supreme Court is examining the case while framing nationwide guidelines for a standard procedure to track missing persons. (HT Archive)

A bench of justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and R Mahadevan said, “The Commissioner of Police, Gurugram will submit a personal affidavit giving their position and explain why the details of recovery of the missing person’s body had not been reflected on the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS).”

SC examines nationwide missing-person tracking system

The court took up the matter in a related case, examining pan-India guidelines for framing a standard operating procedure (SOP) to track missing persons. In this proceeding, the court in August directed all states and Union territories to mandatorily register a first information report (FIR) for any missing person, irrespective of age or gender. The same order further required the Centre to integrate all relevant portals across the country to facilitate interstate coordination and exchange of information about crimes and criminals.

Referring to news reports about Manchanda, the court said, “The news reports indicate that a diary entry was initially made. Why no FIR was registered as per our order?”

Court-appointed panel seeks police reports

The court asked former Delhi High Court judge justice (retd) Mukta Gupta, who heads a court-appointed committee tasked with framing of SOP, about the facts of the case. Gupta told the court that she had already intimated the Delhi and Haryana police, who will be filing their reports before October 5, the next date of hearing.

Manchanda allegedly killed after meeting

According to preliminary reports, she said that an FIR was registered on September 11, though Manchanda went missing on September 6. She said that the man, of his own volition, went to meet a former colleague in Gurugram, where he was allegedly murdered by his ex-colleague and partner. However, the ex-colleague continued to operate Manchanda’s phone and kept his family under the false belief that he was out of Delhi. It was only on September 11 that the family of the missing person approached the Delhi police.

Three days later, the Gurugram Police recovered the body of Manchanda, but the details of the body were not uploaded on CCTNS. It was only on September 14 that the Haryana Police confirmed the identity of Manchanda, but by then, they had already cremated his body.

SC stresses need for integrated police portals

The bench said, “The facts of this case make it all the more necessary to integrate all portals.”

Gupta said that the information was put on Zipnet, which covers only NCR police stations. According to her, the information ought to have been put out on CCTNS, which is a central portal accessible to all police stations.

The bench said, “We want to know from Haryana why the information of the missing person was not put out on the portal.”

The committee constituted by the court also comprises senior advocates SD Sanjay, HS Phoolka, Aparna Bhat, former DG, NDRF, PM Nair and director, ministry of home affairs, Veerendra Kumar Mishra.