NEW DELHI, January 15: A Delhi court lambasted the city police personnel for illegally arresting two persons who had failed to give proof of ownership of their personal belongings including a suitcase, bag and clothes. One of them was detained for over a month.Metropolitan magistrate Vipin Kumar Gupta also cautioned the police personnel against the mindless use of the Delhi Police Act which he said should be used only in cases where reasonable doubt exists.
"When the protectors of civil rights go berserk, law and order gets replaced with anarchy," Metropolitan Magistrate Vipin Kumar Gupta said in his order while discharging the two.
"What more ignoble infraction of human rights can be there than the fact that due to reckless and rather, I must say, mindless action of the police officials, one of the accused has been languishing behind the bars for more than a month," Gupta said.
A Kashmere Gate police station assistant sub-inspector (ASI) P.C. Gill, the investigating officer in the case, along with
constable Ishwar Prasad had arrested Ram Prakash and Irshad near ISBT on the night of November 9, and later chargesheeted them under section 103 of Delhi Police Act (DP) Act.
The two accused submitted before the court that police had seized their bag and suitcase and falsely implicated them in the case. The magistrate said "I would like to sound a note of caution to all police officials in general and the investigating officer of this case in particular" that provisions of Section 103 of the DP Act should be used only in cases where a reasonable suspicion exists.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
