Madras HC pulls up Sembium cop for carrying probe on wrong crime

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has indicted the Inspector attached to Sembium police station here for taking advantage of a typographical error in mentioning a crime number in an order and proceeding further with the probe in the case despite a HC order transferring the same to another official.

This showed the investigation has not been done fairly and in accordance with law, Justice G Jayachandran said recently while disposing of the criminal original petitions (COPs) from Dr P Thomas, owning a fertility clinic, against whom a criminal case had been registered.

"It is necessary to interfere with the matter by exercising power under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C., to prevent the abuse of process of law and miscarriage of justice," the judge added.

Following a complaint from a doctor, who was working under Dr Thomas in his clinic, that he had attempted to kill her by hiring henchmen, the Sembium police registered a case.

The complaint stated that the henchmen brutally attacked her while she was returning to her house on the night of October 4, 2017.

Based on the complaint, the Sembium police registered a case and it was committed to the Court of Sessions. Meanwhile, Thomas had filed criminal original petitions to quash the proceedings pending before the lower court.

After going through the records, Justice Jayachandran observed the typographical error in mentioning the crime number in the earlier order was not noticed by any of the parties concerned till recently.

So taking advantage of the error in the order, the Investigating Officer (IO) had continued the probe and filed the final report. All this showed that the investigation has not been done fairly and in accordance with law.

Further investigation shall be continued by the CB-CID, the judge added and directed the DGP (CB-CID) to entrust the investigation to an officer in the rank of Inspector or above who shall file an additional/supplementary final report.