The Supreme Court today restored a stay against the filing of an FIR against Maharashtra acting DGP A N Roy for an alleged illegal detention. The Bombay High Court had imposed the stay on a lower court order,directing the police to register a case against Roy and six other senior officers. Two months ago,the Supreme Court lifted it and ordered that an FIR be filed against Roy. Today,the apex court dismissed a special leave petition filed by Raj Awasthi who had challenged the stay,imposed in June,based on appeals filed by police officials. The SC has dismissed the SLP, confirmed additional public prosecutor Jayesh Yagnik. The apex court has,however,directed the High Court to decide on the matter by the end of February. Awasthi had been detained on January 3,2006,after Roy,then the citys police commissioner,had given his sanction relying on several documents,mostly non-cognisable complaints. Awasthi later used the RTI Act and found that the alleged complaint against him,supposedly by an Ehsanul Jabbar Siddiqui of Kurla,had never been filed with the police. Awasthi approached the Bandra metropolitan magistrates court seeking action against the officers for forgery and false implication. The magistrate ordered the Vakola police station to register an FIR against Roy and the others for allegedly using forged documents to detain Awasthi under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities (MPDA) Act. The state government then moved the High Courts vacation judge,who issued an interim stay on the magistrates order. In an affidavit filed in the High Court,the police claimed that the case papers had to be reconstructed as the original complaint filed by Siddiqui had been destroyed by the widow of the investigating officer after he died in an accident in May 2007. Until now,no FIR has been registered in the case. The other six officials are then DCP Shashikant Shinde (currently with the Intelligence Wing),then DCP R N Tadvi,senior police inspector Uttam Navghare (now retired),senior police inspector Vilas Pawar (now SP,Kolhapur),then assistant police inspector Shridhar Hanchate and police sub-inspector Bandoo Bansode (now API).
