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Allahabad High court recently directed the office of Advocate General for the State of Uttar Pradesh to not accept any case diary unless a certificate is appended by the Investigating Officer of the case.

The certificate by the Investigating officer (IO) should also be stating that complete original or true copy of the case diary is being produced, court added.

The Single Judge Bench of Justice Vivek Agarwal ensuring the liability in defiance of the direction ordered,

“In case it is found that incomplete case diary is accepted without endorsement of the I.O. causing inconvenience to the court and wastage of precious time then office of Advocate General may be held responsible and consequences may follow.”

The directions have been issued in a case before where a petition was filed by a constable accused under the POCSO Act wherein he claimed that he was at the place of his duty during the commission of the crime.

It was submitted by the petitioner that the main ground to challenge the proceedings before the court below is that as per the information received by him under the Right to Information Act, he was on duty as traffic police personnel (during the relevant time of the incident) and that his duty timings were from 3:00 to 10:00 pm at Ghaziabad and he was dispatched for duty at 2:00 pm.

However, challenging this contention, the advocate for the private respondent averred that as per the probe of the Investigating Officer, the location of the mobile number carried by the accused was found close to the place of the incident.

Thereafter, when asked to supply a copy of the Purcha enclosed with the case diary, Government Advocate submitted that the complete case diary has not been sent to the office of the Advocate General.

The Purch enclosed with the case diary contained the claim that the accused was present near the place of the incident.

Following the argument, the Court requested the Addl. Advocate General t to look into the matter.

Passing the directions, the Court further directed the Addl. Advocate General to communicate the copy of the order to all the Superintendents of Police for its immediate compliance with effect from August 16, 2021.

(Case Title: Constable Ajeet Singh vs. State of UP and Ors.)