Satisfied with their apologies, a division bench of Justice A V Sawant and Justice T K Chandrashekhar Das today disposed off a contempt plea of Mohammad Siraj Mohammad Nasim who alleged that despite the court explicitly directing the Mumbai police to register his complaint and investigate it, the police had failed to do so.

Nasim, a resident of Kurla had, on April 23, 1992 been beaten up allegedly by a few policemen and some civilians. Advocate A R Maniyar, appearing for the petitioner,contended that his client was beaten up during a civil dispute but when he went to the Kurla police station to report the crime, the police officer on duty refused to take action.

He then approached the Bombay High Court and on June 23, 1993, the court found that the case did indeed disclose a cognisable offence and directed the police to investigate the complaint. However, nothing was done and a contempt petition was filed.

Following this, the then police inspector with the Kurla police station Vilas Gopalrao Pandit, now with the Dahisar police station, filed an affidavit saying that he had made investigations, but since he could not find any cognisable offence in it, no complaint was registered. At the next hearing of the case, in October 1998, the division bench of Justice Ashok Desai and Justice Vishnusahai, angrily rejected this affidavit and directed the state to file an affidavit listing out all the officers who were responsible for not taking any action on the high court order.

In November 1999,the principal secretary, Home Department, S K Iyengar filed an affidavit listing out all the police personnel beginning from Vilas Pandit who was with the Kurla police station, to the Senior Inspector Suresh Walishetty, then ACP Isaac Samson, the then additional commissioner of police, Crime, D Sivanandhan and then commissioner of police, Satish Sahaney.

The state government affidavit also pointed out that the High Court order was misunderstood by the police personnel due to which the order could not be implemented. Iyengar's affidavit also said the government had decided to investigate to fix the responsibility for non-implementation of the order.

Meanwhile, all the police personnel involved, filed an unconditional apology to the court, individually. The state government affidavit also said that the offence was registered on November 20, 1998 and in February 1999, a chargesheet was filed in the metropolitan magistrate's court in Kurla. Since no mala fides could be inferred in the non-action of the policepersonnel, the court today accepted the apologies and disposed off the case.