ATLURI PADMA VENKATESHWARA RAO Vs. P I PAWAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Pursuant to the directions issued on the earlier occasion, the Public Prosecutor has produced case diary in connection with the missing complaint in question. When we waded through the said case diary, it was noticed that it was in the form of loose papers tagged together. It was not even paginated. We, therefore, called upon the learned Public Prosecutor to disclose the guidelines issued by the Department to the Police Officers pertaining to maintenance of case diary. He submits that as per the instructions received by the police officer, and in particular CID officers, the case diary is maintained in loose leafs and copy thereof is submitted to the superior officer from time to time. According to him, therefore, there is no possibility or PPD likelihood of the same being tampered. Further, there is no provision in the Criminal Manual which mandates maintenance of bound case diary much less duly paginated. This submission was made on instructions of the Police Officers (1) Mr.S.S. Doddamani, Superintendent of Police, CID, Kolhpur Range & (2) Mr.Dilip Pandurang Jadhav, Dy. Superintendent of Police, CID, Kolhapur, who were present in Court.

(2.) We are shocked to hear such argument by the Public Prosecutor that too instructions given by such senior Police Officers, inspite of the mandatory requirement specified in Section 172(1B) of the Code which has come into force w.e.f. 31.12.2009. The same postulates that the diary referred to in subsection

(3.) Realizing this position, learned Public Prosecutor submits that the concerned officials will take corrective measures forthwith. We are not so much concerned about compliance of that requirement in the case before us, but we are at a loss to know as to why the Home Department has so far not informed all the Police Officials who are expected to maintain the case diary, about the changed legal position which has come into effect from 31.12.2009. The fact that the Senior Police Officers of the rank of Superintendent of Police are not aware about such change, presupposes that the other Officers including the Officers lower in rank must be totally unaware about such requirement.