Mumbai: Acquittals in case of assault on cop; court says evidence of cops inconsistent

Acquitting four persons in a case of assaulting and threatening an on-duty police station incharge in 2015, a sessions court pointed out several discrepancies in the evidence of police before it and said that their evidence does not inspire confidence.

As per the complaint filed by Swati Khedkar who was incharge of Nehru Nagar police station, on January 18, 2015, the four persons Zubeda Nisar, Febin Shaikh, Nisar Ahmed and Kadar Shaikh had come into her cabin. Zubeda had questioned Khedkar why her brother Arif Shaikh had been brought to the station. Khedkar had explained that he was brought in connection with a motor accident case in which he had not paid the fine. Zubeda had allegedly started shouting, caught Khedkar’s collar and slapped her while Febin had scuffled and the other two had threatened her.

The prosecution had examined five witnesses, of which four were police and an independent witness who did not support its case. Adhoc Assistant Sessions Judge CP Jain said in her judgment that if the evidence is minutely scrutinized, it will reflect that there is no consistency in the oral evidence of all the prosecution witnesses. The judge said that this created doubt on their credibility as their evidence is not consistent with each other. Judge Jain also said that if there was “a ring of truth” in the case of the prosecution, the discrepancies would not have come on record.

Judge Jain also questioned why the CCTV camera which was admitted to be functioning during the alleged incident and would have been good cogent evidence on the factum of the incident, was not produced. “Why this good piece of evidence is withheld is not further not explained by the prosecution,” she said, adding that “failing to produce this evidence without explanation is fatal to the prosecution".

The accused had told the court that they had been falsely implicated as after coming to the police station and paying the fine, Khedkar had demanded more money. They said Khedkar had filed the false complaint apprehending that they might file a complaint against her.