A judge hearing a multi-crore land scam case of Navi Mumbai has rapped a senior police official for delaying the court proceedings.
Thane Special Judge M C Khadke was annoyed with Navi Mumbai ACB Deputy Superintendent of Police Bharat Shelke, the investigating officer in the case, as he could not give a satisfactory reply on why he was delaying giving the department’s say on a bunch of bail applications filed by the accused in the case.
While the bail pleas of some of the accused were being heard by the judge, the court called for the official at around 4 PM. The Dy.SP delayed coming to the court and after that the judge took up some other matter and resumed with this case around 5.30 PM. The say was not ready then.
At around 6 PM, when the police reply did not come, the judge ordered that ACB Superintendent of Police Sandeep Karnik should be presented in the court within five minutes.
Upon this, the Dy.SP made frantic attempts to reach his senior. When Shelke told the court that the SP was not reachable, the court asked him, “Don’t you have his residence number? Does he not have a landline number?”
“Make use of ‘Whatsapp’, you can reach him fast and instantly. Where does he stay? Call him immediately. You are wasting the time of my staff, those present here, the time of the public prosecutor. You can call him from here and ask him to come to the court immediately,” the judge told Shelke.
Upon this, the Dy.SP put through the call and informed the court that it would take at least half-an-hour for the SP to come to the court.
“Do you want me to wait up to 8 PM for your sake?” the judge asked. Later when the Dy.SP gave the say, the judge said that “for just this remark you made us wait so long?”
The judge then said that he was ready to wait for the SP to come and also asked the Dy.SP and the prosecutor to be present in the court.
