Court tells cops to probe woman's complaint

PUNE: In a rare order, the magistrate court here has ordered the Dattawadi police to investigate a private criminal complaint lodged by a woman alleging that her husband was murdered and that the police had not taken cognizance of her complaints for taking action against the suspect.
The order was passed by judicial magistrate first class S G Deshpande on a complaint filed by Sharda Jadhav (28) of Parvati Darshan on February 21.
In her complaint, Sharda has alleged that the suspect, Sanjay Tanaji Suryavanshi (30) of Katraj, had taken her husband Jadhav, a cleaner, to Kerala in a truck and had killed him on March 1, 2008.
Jadhav's body was found in Kerala on March 23 and the Kerala police had registered a case of accidental death. Meanwhile, unaware of her husband's death, Sharda lodged a missing person' complaint with the Dattawadi police on March 30. The Dattawadi police transferred the complaint to the Bhartiya Vidyapeeth police station because the incident had not taken place within their jurisdiction. However, the Bhartiya Vidyapeeth police station also did not act on the complaint.
On May 21, Sharda submitted a complaint to the police commissioner for probing the circumstances behind Jadhav's death.
On July 26, Sharda came to know about her husband's death and that his funeral was performed by the Kerala police. After collecting details about the death, she started suspecting the involvement of Suryavanshi in it . She requested the Bhartiya Vidyapeeth police to take action against Suryavanshi.
Since no action was taken by the police, Sharda's lawyer Bilal Shaikh filed a private criminal case against Suryavanshi under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.
When the case came up for hearing, Shaikh told the court that the Dattawadi and Bhartiya Vidyapeeth police had recorded Suryavanshi's statements and had also taken preventive action against him under section 151 of the CrPC. However, instead of arresting him, the police let him go, Shaikh said and prayed to direct the police to conduct a proper investigations in the case.
The magistrate directed the Dattawadi police station to investigate the case under section 156 (3) of the CrPc and submit its report by March 19.
When contacted, senior inspector Uttam More of the Dattawadi police station said that the victim's post-mortem report had revealed that he had died due to drowning. More informed of taking action against Suryavanshi under section 182 of the Indian Penal Code for concealing information about Jadhav's death to the police.