The Bombay High Court today warned the state police of criminal proceedings against its officials for their failure to trace a convict in the fake encounter case of alleged gangster Ramnarayan Gupta.
A bench of justices R V More and Anuja Prabhudessai sounded the warning to the police while hearing a plea by Ramnarayan's brother Ramprasad seeking direction to the police to trace the convict who was let out on parole in 2013 but never returned to jail.
"The police is aware that the convict is absconding but it has still failed to take any action in the past four years," the court said.
"This is a very serious matter. We will initiate suitable criminal action against the concerned policemen for failing to perform their duty," the court said.
The bench directed the senior police inspector of suburban Andheri police station, where FIR was registered, to appear before it on April 20.
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 an urgent need to get admitted to a hospital for eye treatment. And he went missing ever since then.
The Andheri police registered an FIR on February 21, 2014 after the jail authorities informed them of Pandey having jumped the parole, but failed to do anything else.
In July 2013, a local court had convicted 21 people, including 13 police officials for killing Ramnarayan alias Lakhan Bhaiya in a fake encounter in 2006.
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