Indicating orally that it is not inclined to stay Madikeri magistrate court’s direction to the local police to register a first information report (FIR) against two senior IPS officers in connection with the alleged suicide of Deputy Superintendent of Police M.K. Ganapathy, the High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday asked the State Public Prosecutor (SPP) to clarify which agency had to continue the investigation now.
Justice Anand Byrareddy sought the clarification from the SPP by July 28 as two investigating agencies are said to be probing the case now. The court was hearing petitions filed by the then Additional Director-General of Police (State Intelligence) A.M. Prasad and the then Inspector-General of Police (Lokayukta Police) Pronab Mohanty questioning the magistrate court’s order for registering an FIR against them.
While the inquiry based on the unnatural death report (UDR) registered by the Madikeri town police was transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on July 8, the Madikeri magistrate court, based on a private complaint lodged by Nehal, son of Ganapathy, on July 18 directed the Madikeri town police to register an FIR against the petitioner-IPS officers and the then Minister K.J. George for allegedly abetting Ganapathy to commit suicide.
Mr. Justice Byrareddy said the court does not want any ambiguity on which agency had to probe the case now as the case required an expeditious and fair investigation.
Earlier, Senior Counsel C.V. Nagesh, appearing for the petitioner-IPS officers, argued that the magistrate court’s order was “bald” as it did not cite any reason for registering an FIR.
At one point, the judge asked why the petitioner-IPS officers were hesitating to face the probe if the allegations against them were false and want the investigation to be stayed when a Minister (Mr. George) had resigned from his position by making way for the probe.
Meanwhile, Senior Counsel M.T. Nanaiah, appearing for Nehal, pointed out that the CID was not a police station and it could only investigate a case on transfer of the FIR registered by the police. In the present case, Mr. Nanaiah said, as the Madikeri police had not registered an FIR prior to the magistrate court’s direction, the case of Ganapathy’s alleged suicide could not have been transferred to the CID without an FIR.
