Police Station made "call booth:" Delhi Court pulls up police for acting sans registered complaint

A Delhi Court on Saturday pulled up Police officers at the Mehrauli Police Station for acting without registering a formal complaint in a case involving certain allegations against a man (bail applicant) by his ex-girlfriend. (State v. Zishan Ahmad)

. In the course of bail proceedings, the Court was told that the bail applicant had received a call from the police after his ex-girlfriend (complainant) went to the police station and stated that he has not been attending her calls.

. Taking critical note of the same, Additional District and Session Judge Atul Kumar Garg remarked,

“ I fail to understand that how the police station has been converted into the police call booth and the duty officer posted therein had acted at the behest of the complainant to call any person without having a complaint against that person."

. The bail applicant submitted that he had been friends with the complainant, who also worked with him.

. The complainant is stated to have later sent him a suicide note through WhatsApp, wherein she also allegedly made false allegations against him. He subsequently received a call from the Mehrauli police station in relation to a complaint filed by her.

. Therefore, the applicant moved a bail application. He submitted that he was a victim of continuous threatening, harassment torture and blackmail at the hands of the complainant.

. After the Investigating Officer submitted that there was no complaint or FIR filed against the applicant at PS Mehrauli, the Court sought to view a screenshot of the applicant’s call logs.

. As directed by the Court, the applicant furnished a screenshot of the call logs of his mobile phone number, showing that a call had been received from the police station which lasted over four minutes.

. In this backdrop, the Assistant Sub Inspector present in Court submitted that the complainant had appeared in PS Mehrauli stating that the applicant was not responsive to her calls and had requested the police to call him. Therefore, a head constable had called the applicant, the Court was told.

. The Court expressed shock over how the police officer had acted, merely at the behest of the complainant and without registering any formal complaint.

. The Judge further noted that a complaint was registered in the matter only on September 24, a day after the matter was heard by the Court, even though the police was in possession of the complaint on September 20 itself.

. Judge Atul Garg further observed that the police had misled the court by giving false information.

. In light of this, the court directed the presence of the concerned police officers along with the complaint on the next date of hearing on September 27. The Court also restrained the police from acting on the complaint lodged by the complainant until then.

. Advocate Juhi Arora appeared for the applicant. Additional Public Prosecutor Anupma Singh appeared for the State.

Police Station made "call booth:" Delhi Court pulls up police for acting sans registered complaint

Anadi Tiwari

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