The Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed a senior Mumbai Police official to find out “through an appropriate investigating agency,” if the signature of an accused on a Vakalatnama, “is genuine or is forged,” as the accused is untraceable.
A ‘vakalatnama’ is a legal document that authorises a lawyer to represent a client in court proceedings and is signed by the person filing the petition.
A bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Dr Neela Gokhale was hearing a petition filed by an accused seeking quashing of an FIR registered at a local police station in Mumbai under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 498A (husband subjecting woman to cruelty), 504 (intentional insult), 506 (criminal intimidation) read with 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) when it directed Mumbai Police’s Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) to file an affidavit in connection with the case.
The estranged wife who had registered the FIR, through her lawyers Mayuri Hatle and Mandar Surve, said that her husband had been absconding since the date of the registration of the crime and is stationed in Dublin, Ireland.
An official from the concerned police station was present in the court and conceded to the fact that the husband was found to be absconding from the date of lodging of the crime.
However, when the bench perused the case diary, it saw that there was no effort made by the police to trace the accused husband at all.
“The Case Diary is absolutely silent on the said aspect and therefore inference can be drawn that, the Investigating Officer is not diligent in investigating the crime,” the bench noted.
At that very moment, the wife’s advocates submitted that the signatures on the husband’s passport and that on the Vakalatnama were different. It is because of this issue that the Mumbai police will have to find out about the signatures.
The court will hear the petition again on October 9.
