New Delhi:
The Delhi High Court Monday expressed dissatisfaction over the investigation conducted by the Delhi Police Crime Branch into the case of disappearance of a CISF official, who is missing since May after visiting his Dhaula Kuan office here. The high court asked the crime branch to file its third status report after changing the investigating officer to address the various loopholes in the probe conducted so far into the disappearance.
A bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rajnish Bhatnagar also hinted that it can change the investigating agency in the case and may ask the CBI or some other independent agency to probe. The high court was hearing a habeas corpus petition by the wife of CISF constable Venkata Rao, through advocates R Balaji and K.Sravan Kumar, seeking to know the whereabouts of her husband.
An FIR was lodged at police station Usmanpur under Section 365 IPC (kidnapping or abduction with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person) on September 17 on the direction of the high court. A habeas corpus petition is filed seeking direction to produce a person who is missing or illegally detained.
The bench said this was a case where a man has disappeared and it was not at all satisfied with the investigation and that it may have to change the investigating agency. It said the case was earlier transferred from the Usmanpur police station to the crime branch for a fair and transparent probe, however, proper investigation was being done.
Advocate Chaitanya Gosain, representing the Delhi Police, assured the court that further investigation would be carried out. Advocate Balaji told the court that there were a large number of shortcomings and loopholes in the status reports filed by both the crime branch and the CISF.
The high court listed the matter for further hearing on December 18. The woman, Godi Raja Kumari has approached the high court seeking to know the whereabouts of her husband, who was working as a driver, as she suspected foul play in his disappearance due to frequent tiffs with his superior.
Rao is missing since May 26, this year after he allegedly visited his office at Dhaula Kuan to seek clearance of his leave to visit his native place in East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh along with his wife and her septuagenarian father..
