Ask officers not to demand money from parties to file counter affidavits: Allahabad HC to UP DGP

Prayagraj , The Allahabad High Court has asked the Uttar Pradesh DGP to issue a circular informing every police officer in the state to never call up a party of a case and demand money from them for filing counter affidavits in the court.

The high court took serious note of the alleged demand of money from the parties of the case by the investigation officer of police for filing a counter affidavit before it.

Justice Prashant Kumar referred a matter on Tuesday to the UP director general of police to conduct a proper inquiry in the case against the concerned investigation officer, Madhusudan Verma, and said "such kind of practice is highly deplorable".

The above observation was made by the court during the course of the hearing of a case filed by one Kamlesh Mishra and another. It was pointed out by the counsel for the applicant that the IO of the case called him up at 11.47 am and asked for ₹3,000 in lieu of coming to file a counter affidavit.

It was further informed by the lawyers that this has become a practice that the investigating officer calls the party and asks for money to file a counter affidavit.

Verma, who was present in the court, conceded to the fact that he had called up to get information.

While holding that this submission of IO was not acceptable, the court directed the investigating officer concerned to file his personal affidavit. Subsequently, the same was filed and was taken on record.

In the affidavit, the IO averred that he had made a phone call to the applicant in order to submit a satisfactory reply in the case and he never demanded money from the applicants and false allegations have been made by the applicants just to tarnish the image of the police department.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the submissions of the IO, the court said, "The aforesaid stand taken in the personal affidavit does not explain the conduct of the IO. Hence, the matter is referred to the DGP, UP to conduct a proper inquiry into the matter against the investigating officer."

The court directed to list the matter on July 23 for the next hearing.

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