Monday, April 21, 2014

Gujarat High Court seeks report from registrar general over missing case papers

Gujarat high court has asked the registrar general to take action against the responsible officers of the metropolitan court for misplacing records in a murder case and submit a report by April 24.


Misplacing case papers in this murder case has resulted in five-year long delay in trial, and prisoner Dilip Joshi was not produced before the court for all these years.



In this case, Joshi was accused in a murder case for which an FIR was lodged in Odhav police station in March 2008. Joshi was arrested in November that year and charge-sheeted in February 2009. Since then, there was no development in this case.



Five years after the arrest, when Joshi sought bail, the HC called for case papers and it was found that case record was not traceable. Finally, case papers were found on March 6. The HC found that Joshi's case has not come up on board for hearing since July 14, 2009, but no action has been taken so far for dereliction of duty on part of concerned staff and judicial officer for not verifying and monitoring the case for more than three years.



Joshi' counsel, Tulsi Savani submitted before the high court that lodging an undertrial for five years without committing chargesheet for trial and without having produced the prisoner before a concerned court amounted to pre-trial conviction.



After hearing this, the HC has sought action taken report from the registrar general by April 24.

Missing Documents

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