POCSO Act: Bombay HC Slam Police Officials For Filing Closure Report Before Hearing

The Bombay High Court slammed police officials of the Uran police station after they filed a closure report while the high court was still in the middle of hearing a petition pertaining to the same case.

A division bench of Justices AS Gadkari and PD Naik was hearing a case filed by a man whose minor brother was sexually molested by an “extremely powerful and prominent” figure in 2020.

Under the POCSO Act, a charge was filed against Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi leader Dr Abdul Rehman Anjaria at Mumbai’s Sakinaka police station.

Despite anticipatory bail pleas being denied by the Sessions Court, the Bombay High Court, and the Supreme Court, Anjaria was never arrested in the case.

As the petitioner’s lawyers, Ghanshyam Upadhyay, Aakash Mishra, and Vijay Jha, raised the issue, they took the court through the fact that the petitioner’s brother was later found dead in 2022 in a “strange” road accident with a “heavy goods vehicle” in Uran.

Because his brother was the lone witness against Anjaria, the petitioner claimed that this was not an accident but rather murder. He stated that the accident was “stage managed,” thus he requested that a FIR be filed. The petitioner further requested that the case be turned over to the CBI for investigation.

The petition filed this year was first heard on February 14,2023, when the government pleader requested time to accept directions from the investigating officer. However, on February 17, the investigating officer moved a magistrate’s court and presented a ‘A-Summary Report’. An ‘A-Summary’ report is made when the police say the case is true but went undiscovered, or when there is no information regarding the perpetrators.

The bench slammed the Uran Police Department for doing this while the case was being heard. “The deplorable practice adopted by said Investigating Officer is thereby deprecated.” the bench remarked.

The court also ordered the Joint Commissioner of Police (Crimes), Navi Mumbai, to file an affidavit after taking in all the details.

They need to submit their response by March 9,2023.