Court summons filing status of chargesheet forwarded in last 3 yrs

new delhi: Taking a strong note of non-filing of charge sheets by investigating officers (IOs) despite being forwarded by a senior officer, a Delhi court has sought the filing status of charge sheets forwarded in the last three years and said it would definitely "unearth many hidden ghosts" (files) and "wake many souls (IOs) from slumber".

Non-filing of charge sheets despite being forwarded by a senior officer amounted to undermining the hierarchy and discipline of service, the court said.

It added that late filing of charge sheets despite timely completion of the investigation shook the confidence of an ordinary citizen in the justice delivery system.

A time period be fixed for filing forwarded charge sheets and IOs should be asked to strictly comply with it, the court said, adding that such time should not be more than 30 days from the date of forwarding of charge sheet by the concerned ACP.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Arvind Bansal directed the concerned Additional Commissioners of Police (ACPs) to prepare a list of the charge sheets forwarded in the last three years (2018-2020) and sought a status report of filing from the concerned IOs.

It further directed the concerned ACPs to devise a mechanism under the guidance of DCP (South-East) to check and ensure that all the charge sheets signed/ forwarded by them were duly submitted with the court.

It further said that the IOs need to understand and know that investigation of all 'summons cases' generally needed to be concluded within six months from the date on which the accused was arrested, and failure might result in an order by the concerned Magistrate stopping further investigation into the offence.