With increase in hit-and-run cases, in many of which victims remain unidentified and are cremated by the police, a Delhi court has directed the AAP government and the police to work out a mechanism of sending fingerprints of such victims for comparison with massive nationalised data maintained for issuance of Aadhar card.
The court has directed the Delhi government and the police to coordinate in this direction which can increase the probability of identification of victims of all crime.
Additional District & Sessions Judge Anoop Kumar Mendiratta directed that a copy of his order be forwarded to Chief Secretary, Government of NCT of Delhi for necessary coordination/compliance as the data of voter I card/Aadhar cards is available with the government. It directed the government to file an Action Taken Report on its order by May 13.
Mr Mendiratta has directed the Commissioner of Police for “taking up necessary steps in all such cases to explore the possibility of identification of deceased in hit-and-run cases of motor vehicle accidents.”
The court passed the order in a hit-and-run case where the victim was admitted to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash hospital on January 12. The offending vehicle remained undetected and untraced. Also, the name of the victim or any other particulars could not be known during investigation and the victim succumbed to his injuries on January 14 after battling for life for two days.
Mr Mendiratta said, “It has come to my notice that in several cases, the identity of the deceased victim remains unestablished and the body is cremated by the police authorities after completion of necessary formalities.
“However, in none of the cases an effort is made to forward the finger prints of the deceased victim for comparison with the nationalised data maintained for issuance of Aadhar Cards which is collected at national level.”
The court noted that forwarding the finger prints would also help in investigation of cases where the faces of victims are beyond recognition.
The judge also said that to ensure speedy investigation, finger prints should be sent for comparison with bio-metric data within 48 hours of the incident where identity remains unidentified. Thereafter, the results of the comparison should also be forwarded by the Centralised and Data Maintaining Authority of Aadhar card within 48 hours.
Additional District & Sessions Judge Anoop Kumar Mendiratta directed that a copy of his order be forwarded to Chief Secretary, Government of NCT of Delhi for necessary coordination/compliance.
