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Only flogging can make you work, SC tells errant cops
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August 08, 2008 20:24 IST

"In this country you need huntering (flogging) to make you work," the Supreme Court said on Friday while venting its anger on bureaucrats and top police officials for their failure to respond on an issue related to punishing errant cops who refuse to register FIRs on public complaints.
 
"Is this Ramrajya in this country...So this is swaraj. This is the concept of swaraj," said a bench of Justices B N Agrawal and G S Singhvi, while lamenting the attitude of the top bureaucrats and the frequent complaints of citizens that policemen do not register FIRs promptly.
 
While granting two more weeks to chief secretaries/DGsP and police commissioners to file their response, the apex court warned that if the top bureaucrats fail to respond, it would direct their personal attendance in the next hearing.                                               
 
The bench gave vent to its anguish as barring Uttar Pradesh [Images] and Arunachal Pradesh, no state or Union Territory had so far responded to its July 14 directions.
 
On July 14, the bench had ordered that a citizen whose FIR is not registered can approach a judicial magistrate for direction to the police officer concerned to register the FIR.
 
While giving the directions, the apex court asked the states and Union Territories to file their replies within three weeks and posted the matter to August 8.
 
But on Friday when the matter came up for hearing only UP and Arunachal Pradesh had filed their response while the others failed to respond, which provoked the bench to pass the observations and fresh directions.
 
The bench regretted that even though it had posted the directions on the Supreme Court website so that it was accessible to all the officials concerned, yet the later choose to ignore its directions.
 
"It is a pathetic state of affairs that only two sates, viz, states of Uttar Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh have responded and other states did not bother to file their responses. Some of them have simply engaged their counsel, who are appearing in court, and as usual, they have made prayer for time to file responses," the bench observed.
 
The bench passed the directions while dealing with a habeas corpus petition filed by Bhola Kamat whose 16-year-old daughter was abducted by some persons in a land dispute.
 
Kamat filed a complaint with the police who allegedly threatened him to withdraw it and enter into a compromise with the accused, which included an advocate, Sobha Gupta.

Counsel Pranesh for the victim had earlier told the court that Kamat's daughter Lalita Kumar, a resident of Ilaichipur village in UP's Ghaziabad district, was kidnapped by some persons at the alleged instance of Sobha Gupta.

The kidnapping was said to be a sequel to a land dispute between Kamat, a private security guard, and Sobha. She had also reportedly threatened to abduct his son.
 
According to Kamat, he lodged a complaint with the local police, who failed to register an FIR, following which he submitted a representation to the Senior Superintendent of Police of Ghaziabad on June 6, providing the names of the accused persons.
 
On the intervention of the SSP, the local police registered an FIR, but failed to nab the accused.
 
Instead, the local police have been demanding a bribe from him to arrest the accused, Kamat alleged in his petition.


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