The Bombay High Court was today told by the city police that it has traced and arrested a convict, absconding since 2013 after jumping parole in a 2006 case of fake encounter of an alleged gangster Ramnarayan Gupta.
A bench of justices R V More and Anuja Prabhudessai had last month warned of criminal action against the errant police officials for failing to trace the convict who was let out on parole in 2013 but who never returned to jail.
The police informed the court about the arrest of absconding convict during hearing of a plea by Ramnarayan's brother Ramprasad on the issue.
Additional Public Prosecutor Jayesh Yagnik conveyed to the court that convict Shailendra Pandey was traced to Goa and was arrested last week.
Yagnik said a deputy commissioner of police was inquiring into the matter and ascertaining if there was any lapse by the police.
"The convict was traced and arrested when we said we would initiate criminal action against the police. Everybody is hand in glove including the police officers. What signal are we sending to the society? We are going to take this matter very seriously," Justice More said.
The bench posted the petition for further hearing on June 12 and directed the police to file a report.
According to the petition, absconding convict Shailendra Pandey had been serving a life sentence when he was granted parole for a month on November 2, 2013.
Pandey, however, got the parole extended by a few days on the pretext of needing to get admitted in a hospital for eye treatment. His whereabouts have not been known since.
The Andheri police registered an FIR on February 21, 2014 after the jail authorities informed them of Pandey having jumped parole, but failed to do anything else.
In July 2013, a local city had convicted 21 people, including 13 police officials for killing Ramnarayan alias Lakhan Bhaiya in a fake encounter in 2006.
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