Aravali raising a “big question mark” on the circumstances under which a trial court in Modasa accepted the police report in favor of two accused in the alleged abduction, gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit girl Through an order in May, the Gujarat High Court quashed the order last week.
In the judgment passed on December 15 and made available earlier this week, the HC also ordered the trial court to decide on the issue after giving an opportunity of hearing to the close relatives of the deceased.
The HC has questioned how the trial court accepted the ‘C’ summary filed by the police on the day the notice was issued to the complainant, who also gave his no-objection to the police summary in the court on a day was – April 1, 2020, when due to lockdown was in force COVID-19 global pandemic.
“It is quite unfortunate to note that ‘C’ summary report was filed on 01.04.2020 and the Trial Court passed the order accepting such report on the same day, i.e. 01.04.2020. There is a big question mark as to when the notice was issued to him and when the notice was issued to him. Under what circumstances the complainant appeared before the trial court and filed a plea stating that if the said report is accepted, then He has no objection, raises serious doubts about the proceedings before the trial court. The court is bound to act in a fair and just manner; however, in the present case, the same was missing,” said Justice Gita Gopi. A single-judge bench headed by it said in its judgment passed last week.
The court was acting on a petition filed by five relatives of the deceased – his parents, two sisters and a brother.
The case pertains to a 19-year-old Dalit girl whose body was found hanging from a tree in a village in Aravalli district on January 5, 2020, after she went missing on January 1, 2020.
The concerned police station had first registered a case of accidental death. Then on January 7, 2020, an FIR was registered against four people on charges of kidnapping, gang rape and murder under the provisions of the IPC and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The FIR was lodged with a distant relative of the deceased as the complainant.
The four accused named in the FIR include Bimal Bharwad, Darshan Bharwad, Satish Bharwad and Jigar Parmar.
The then DGP of Gujarat had constituted a Special Investigation Team under the leadership of a senior IPS officer Gautam Parmar to probe the matter.
In their petition filed before the HC with the guidance and help of a retired Additional District Judge KB Rathod and through advocate Kashyap Joshi, five relatives of the deceased challenged a summary report filed by the police on April 1, 2020 in the court of the special judge Was. In favor of Additional Sessions Judge of Modasa and two accused Darshan Bharwad and Jigar Parmar in Aravalli.
The complainant in the case also appeared before the trial court on the same day and gave his no-objection to the ‘C’ summary report. And the trial court had accepted the summary report by passing an order on the same day.
The petitioners submitted that under the provisions of Section 15A of the Atrocities Act, they were aggrieved and the trial court accepted the summary report without hearing them. He also presented the circumstances under which the summary report was filed and accepted by the trial court during the nationwide lockdown.
He said that against the principles of natural justice, the trial court “recorded the consent of the complainant and accepted the report without assigning any reason and without giving any opportunity of being heard to the close relatives of the deceased” and “directed to issue Order passed “from jail of both the accused”
The petitioners also pointed out that along with the summary report, the police had also filed a charge sheet against the other accused.
“However, in the charge sheet, respondent No. 2 (Investigation Officer) replaced it (main charges in the FIR like kidnapping, gang rape and murder) with sections 306 (abetment to suicide), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) Offenses) and 504 of IPC (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace),” he pointed out to the court as recorded later in its judgment.
The HC Bench recorded that the order of the trial court to accept the summary report in favor of the two accused was “secret”.
“The impugned order is cryptic in nature… It is recorded that notice has been issued to the complainant and in pursuance of such notice, the complainant appeared before the court and filed a purse to the effect that his has no objection, if the summary ‘C’ filed in favor of the two accused named therein is accepted. It is to be noted that all the above incidents happened on a single day,” the judgment read.
The HC observed that the complainant in the case is only an informer who cannot be called a victim and the trial court should have issued notice to the “victims” (five petitioners) before passing the order. It has also ordered the trial court to issue notices to the five “victims” and give them a reasonable opportunity to present their case on summary ‘C’ and decide the issue in accordance with law.
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