Addressed plight of kith and kin of missing person; Instructions/guidelines to be adopted by the police officials in the State of Rajasthan laid down: Rajasthan High Court
Addressed plight of kith and kin of missing person; Instructions/guidelines to be adopted by the police officials in the State of Rajasthan laid down: Rajasthan High Court
The Rajasthan High Court passed a judgment on 30-07-2021 in the case of Urmila Devi vs. State of Rajasthan Civil Writ Petition No. 10364/2021. A Division Bench of Sandeep Mehta and Manoj Kumar, JJ., disposed of the petition, observing that the missing person Shri Prem Ratan expired, as a result of being hit by a locomotive on the railway tracks near Sadulpur/Rajgarh.
FACTS OF THE CASE:
The petitioner Urmila Devi has approached this court by way of his habeas corpus petition alleging inter alia that her husband Shri Prem Ratan aged about 72 years went missing on 04-09-2019 and since then, he has been untraceable. She has prayed for a direction to the respondent police authorities to trace out and produce the corpus in this court. Information was received that a dead body of an old man resembling Shri Prem Ratan had been found on the railway tracks by the officials of the GRP, Rajgarh/Sadulpur and an inquest report was registered on relation there to.
Counsel for the petitioner Mr. Gyan Jyoti Gupta, learned submitted that by no stretch of imagination can it be accepted that the man who died by the railway locomotive accident would be the husband of the petitioner herein and thus, the habeas corpus petition is justified.
Counsel for the State Mr. Farzand Ali, submitted that if a comparison of the photograph of the person, appended with the missing person report is made with the colored photographs of the dead body taken by the GRP officials, it would become apparent that the man who was run over by the train was none other than Prem Ratan.
JUDGEMENT:
The court observed that the deceased, whose photographs were taken by the officials of the GRP, Sadulpur was an old aged man with grey hair, a mustache and french beard. As per the photograph, Prem Ratan was having grey hair, a mustache and french beard. The uncanny resemblance of features between the two sets of photographs is too striking so as to be overlooked. The color of mane and facial hair is grey both in the picture annexed with the missing person report and pictures of the dead body. The shape of mustache and beard is identical in both photographs. The fact that Shri Prem Ratan left his house on 04-09-2019 and that the dead body was recovered from a little distance away on the railway tracks on the very next morning also gives rise to an imminent possibility of the dead body being that of Prem Ratan. Thus, we are duly satisfied that the dead body which was found near the railway tracks of Sadulpur was that of Shri Prem Ratan and no one else.
The Court directed “The Director-General of the police shall as far as possible, try to incorporate these principles in the police manual,”
The Court further directed “in all cases of recovery of unidentified dead bodies, the police officials concerned, be it the local police or the railway police officials, immediate efforts shall be made to contact the nearest Medical College/CMHO/Medical Jurist for the purpose of collecting viscera samples from such bodies so that, the same can be preserved for DNA comparison/analysis as and when required.”
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JUDGEMENT REVIEWED BY CHANDANA SHEKAR