Delhi Court Rejects Plea by 4 Gujarat Cops in 2008 Minor Kidnapping Case

A Delhi court has dismissed a criminal revision petition filed by four Gujarat Police officers accused of illegally taking a minor boy from Delhi to Ahmedabad to force his father to surrender in a criminal case.

In an order dated August 12, Additional Sessions Judge Parveen Singh observed that the police personnel acted like "colonial overlords" and used the child as "bait". The court noted that the officers were tasked with locating the boy's father, who was wanted in a criminal case, and had no legal authority to take the minor into custody and transport him across state lines.

Judge Parveen Singh stated that their duty was strictly to search for the accused father and not to take the minor child into custody or act like colonial overlords of the past by hanging the child as bait for the father's surrender.

The four police officers had approached the sessions court to challenge earlier orders passed by a trial court. The trial court had taken cognisance of the offence of kidnapping and directed the framing of charges against the accused officers.

According to the case records, the matter dates back to May 25, 2008. The complainant, who is the boy's mother, alleged that five to six Gujarat Police personnel dressed in civil clothes arrived at her scrap shop in Delhi searching for her husband, who was an accused in a case, and subsequently took the minor away.