A court here has set aside an order seeking personal appearance of Delhi Commissioner of Police in a case involving ex-BJP MLA Ranjeet Singh for allegedly faking his caste certificate during the 2013 Assembly elections.
Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Pulastya Pramachala set aside a trial court order, saying it has been observed by superior courts that the presence of higher officers should not be sought, until and unless it is absolutely necessary to summon them.
"Straight away summoning the top most officer of the force could have been avoided and the trial court could have sought report regarding such reasons. The personal appearance of the Commissioner of Police would not have served any purpose," the judge said.
The court further said, "A direction to ensure impartial and independent investigation is conducted under supervision of higher officers coupled with a report for explaining the reasons for half hearted investigation made till date, would have been appropriate course of action."
In the 2013 Assembly election, BJP's Ranjeet Singh had won from Gokalpur, an SC reserved constituency of north-east Delhi, by defeating Independent candidate Surender Kumar who later filed a complaint before the court alleging that Singh had faked his caste certificate.
The court, while allowing the appeal of Delhi Police to set aside the trial court order, said, further investigation in the case has been carried out by the SHO himself and the report of investigation has been already filed before the trial court.
The trial court in its order dated September 22, 2014, had directed personal appearance of Commissioner of Police, in order to report as to why the police was stalling investigation of the case after the police failed to file the compliance report and investigation report of the case.
In its order on September 16, 2014 the trial court had appointed an IPS officer as investigating officer of the case, to ensure independent and impartial probe after it found that despite lapse of a month from registration of FIR, police was not serious about the case.
In his complaint, Kumar had alleged that Singh had, in connivance with government officials, managed to secure caste certificate of Schedule Caste category, though he belonged to Other Backward Class (OBC).
The trial court had in August 2014, asked the police to lodge a FIR against Singh under section 420 (cheating) and 468 (forgery), 120 (B)(criminal conspiracy) of IPC.
