The Supreme Court has vacated a Bombay High Court stay on a lower court order that a case be registered against AN Roy and five other cops in an illegal detention case. Roy, the acting Maharashtra DGP, was city police commissioner when the alleged illegal detention took place in 2006.

The High Court had stayed the Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate’s order in June. The Supreme Court on Friday issued notices to all parties, vacating the stay. In effect, the metropolitan court order can now be enforced by investigating officials.

The magistrate had last year ordered Vakola police to register an FIR against Roy, two deputy commissioners of police and three other officers over the detention of one Raj Awasthi under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities (MPDA) Act.

Awasthi was detained on January 3, 2006, after Roy gave sanction for the action relying on several documents, mostly non-cognisable complaints. Awasthi used the RTI Act and found that the alleged complaint against him by one Ehsanul Jabbar Siddiqui from Kurla was never filed with the police.

The state government had moved the HC vacation judge, who stayed the magistrate’s order. In an affidavit in the HC, the police said the case papers had to be reconstructed as the original complaint by Siddiqui was destroyed by the widow of the investigating officer after he died in an accident in Dhule in May 2007.

When contacted, Awasthi’s lawyer Sanjay Parikh said the police were free to register an FIR against the cops. “The SC observed that investigations cannot be stayed by the court,” Parikh said.