The Delhi High Court Thursday pulled up the CBI for its failure to trace a 26-year-old woman, who disappeared from a police station here, and not registering the case a gainst the accused police officials.A pision bench of Justice Ravindra Bhatt and Justice Vipin Sanghi came down heavily on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for not only failing to trace the woman after almost two years of her disappearance, but also dragging its feet on action against accused police officials."Lady is missing after she was picked up by police. We had handed over the case to you (CBI). What are you doing? Why did you name the (accused) persons in the FIR?" asked the court expressing displeasure on the conduct of the investigation agency.The bench said that there is "reluctance" on the part of CBI for not naming the accused police officials in its FIR, which is "unacceptable"."How do you investigate normally?
If you have not registered the name of accused in the FIR what is this type on investigation?"Case was transferred to CBI because one expects independent investigation in the case," the bench said and asked CBI to file a status report indicating clear steps taken by it to trace the woman.During the hearing counsela ppearing for CBI told the court that an FIR was registered by it against "unknown persons" and woman has not been traced yet.To this, the court sought to know why despite the fact that there was strong suspicion against some police officials posted at the police station for their involvement in the disappearance of the woman, and a FIR being registered (by Delhi Police) and accused police officials stand suspended already, no positive result is coming up.
The court had earlier transfered the investigation from Delhi Police to the CBI while taking into note of the victim's father, Ram Prasad's submission that the police department would never bring the culprits to book because the suspects are police personnel themselves. Prasad has accused the department of "shielding" its officers. The police department had admitted that the woman disappeared under its watch and some of its officials posted at the police station were negligent. However, no action was taken against the suspects.The case related to the disappearance of a wom an from the Pul Prahladpur police station May 23, 2012. Police picked up the woman after the manager of a local tailoring hub complained against her.