The home secretary will order a departmental inquiry against the senior inspector of Airport police station, Nitin Indurkar, after a woman moved the Bombay high court alleging that the officer did not probe a case in which she was attacked and even accepted a bribe from the accused.
A high court division bench of Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice AP Bhangale recently told the home secretary that an officer not below the rank of assistant commissioner police of Vakola division should conduct the inquiry.
Indurkar did not respond to phone calls or text messages.
Rekha Pawar, 37, had approached the high court alleging that six people attacked her on July 16 because they suspected she complained to the civic body against them for putting up a hoarding in front of her paan shop at Vile Parle.
She claimed the police initially registered a case of attempt to murder but later altered the charge to voluntarily causing hurt.
Pawar said the Airport police were investigating her case but it was later transferred to Vile Parle police station. “Neither police station conducted proper investigation,” Pawar alleged.
“The police altered the charge to a less serious offence,” Pawar’s advocate, Sandeep Singh, argued in court. He said although Pawar had named four out of the six accused, the police did not name of any of them in the first information report.
{{/usCountry}}“The police altered the charge to a less serious offence,” Pawar’s advocate, Sandeep Singh, argued in court. He said although Pawar had named four out of the six accused, the police did not name of any of them in the first information report.
{{/usCountry}}The court said it agreed with Pawar’s grievance that even the Vile Parle police had not investigated the case appropriately, in spite of Pawar’s allegation that the accused paid Rs1.5 lakh to Indurkar.
The court held that the medical report mentioned that Pawar sustained an injury on her skull. “If it is so, we fail to understand how the newly appointed investigating officer of Vile Parle police station has not considered it necessary to apply section 307 [attempt to murder],” the court said. “Some erasure has been done in the record of converting the offence to section 327 [voluntarily causing hurt].”
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