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Recently a Tamil-legal drama film Jai Bhim is caused a stir with its portrayal of how an advocate fetches justice to a woman searching for her husband, by invoking the High Court's jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Indian Constitution by a writ of habeas corpus, but in the real life, such justice is a far cry. Infact, after 13 years of wait for her husband, a petitioner woman's criminal writ petition, moved seeking the production of her husband, has now been disposed off with a direction to pay her Rs.50,000 as "exemplary cost."

In the case which came up before the Bombay High Court, the court noted,

"For the last 13 years, the petitioner is fighting to secure presence of her husband. The State machinery has failed to produce the petitioner's husband, even after a decade, it is a sad state of affairs on the part of State machinery."

Yet, pointing out that the petitioner woman's husband had gone missing since 2005 and despite a police complaint on the same day, her husband had not been traced out, the bench of Justice V.K. Jadhav and Justice Shrikant D. Kulkarni said, "We express our displeasure about the way in which the State machinery has conducted investigation in the case," and went ahead to dispose off the case.

“Since the efforts of the Police Officer/Sub-Divisional Police Officer (S.D.P.O) Degloor Sub Division have not yielded any result, despite their efforts, according to us, no useful purpose would now be served by keeping this petition alive."

In this backdrop, directing the State machinery to pay Rs.50,000 to the woman by way of exemplary costs within a period of three months from the date of the order, the court disposed of the Criminal Writ Petition.

The Court, however, directed the SDPO of the area to continue with his investigation for tracing the whereabouts of the petitioner’s husband stating, "The investigation should not be closed on account of disposal of this writ petition."

Factual Matrix

The petitioner woman is the wife of one Gangadhar Patil, resident of village Chakur, Tq. Degloor, District – Nanded. Her husband used to own and run business of cotton as part of which he would purchase cotton from farmers and businessmen and sell it to Vithal Gaikawad/ Chairman of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Magasvargiya Sahakari Soot Girni, Palam, Dist. Parbhani. Gaikawad also happened to be the then Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) of the area.

The said Soot Girni was liable to pay dues of Rs. 58,690 to the petitioner’s husband, for which, he made several requests to the Chairman of the Girni.

The petitioner woman alleged before the High Court that being a Chairman and M.L.A., Vithal Gaikawad along with his son and close relatives had threatened to her husband to kill him if he demanded the outstanding bills regarding which one complaint was also filed before the Dy. Superintendent of Police, Parbhani and Dy. Superintendent of Police, Nanded.

The woman had averred that on May 20, 2005, one Amrut Maharaj called her husband in respect of his outstanding bills, and it was from there that her husband never returned.

She alleged that the MLA and others had detained her husband with the help of Amrut Maharaj who had called her husband that day. Afterwards, she lodged a complaint with Police Inspector, Police Station, Degloor however, till date there has been no trace of her husband.

The petitioner woman’s counsel averred that the State Government had even failed to assign any reason as to why no action had been taken against the MLA and his relatives when there were specific allegations against the MLA in the petitioner's complaints, and why no FIR had been registered against him.

On the other had, the State submitted that there was no laxity on the part of the Police machinery in tracing out the petitioner's husband, and that unfortunately, he could not be traced out despite all best efforts.

Taking note of both the parties' submissions, the court noted that though the police had filed reports in the matter before Court from time to time, the Court had earlier also expressed its dissatisfaction with the manner in which the investigation had been made.

The Court noted, “We cannot overlook the fact that the State machinery has failed to take effective and concrete steps to secure the presence of the petitioner's husband.”

The Court also stressed that investigation was lacking devotion to achieve the goal and mere paperwork of investigation seemed to be on record.

Therefore, stating that the investigation lacked whole-hearted efforts and now there are no chances to secure the presence of the petitioner’s husband, the court pulled up the State machinery and awarded the petitioner woman Rs. 50,000 by way of exemplary cost.

Cause Title: Smt. Kamalbai v. Smt. Kamalbai