1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH : NAGPUR CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO.25 OF 2009 (Sudhakar Sukhdeo Ramteke and others vs. State and another) __________________________________________________________________ Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. CORAM : D.D. SINHA AND P.B. VARALE, JJ. DATED : AUGUST 29 , 2009 Heard Shri Ghodeswar, learned Counsel for the petitioners, and Shri Fulzele, learned Additional Public Prosecutor for the respondents. The grievance of the petitioners as well as other prisoners is in respect of their non-production by the Police before respective Criminal Courts when the matters are listed for hearing or for recording evidence. Shri Fulzele, learned Additional Public Prosecutor has filed affidavit of Shri Shantaram Waghmare, Additional Commissioner of Police (Administration), Nagpur City, who has been 2 authorized by the Commissioner of Police to file the said affidavit. The Additional Commissioner of Police in paras (4), (5) and (6) of the said affidavit has mentioned thus : (4) Therefore, so far as the prisoners before this Hon’ble Court are concerned, they are regularly produced before the Court. Only on some occasions when there are unavoidable circumstances like major bandobast, VIP movement, law and order problem in such circumstances they could not be produced before the concerned Court. (5) I further say and submit that Special Cell has been created in the Nagpur City to escort the prisoners from Central Jail to the Court and vice versa. In my opinion, there is sufficient manpower supplied to the Special Cell to escort the prisoners, since there are large number of Courts in Nagpur city as well as in the adjoining Districts and the prisoners are required to be produced before the different Courts. At the same time, prisoners of MOCCA Court, NDPS Court are hardcore criminals, who are required to be escorted by the Armed Forces. Hence, in some cases, that too rarely, escort could not be made available to the some prisoners. (6) I further assure this Hon’ble Court that Special Cell is instructed to make available escort to all the prisoners as much as possible. I further say and submit that the manpower for the escort cell is 3 provided from the manpower available in City Police. I further assure this Hon’ble Court that persistent efforts are being made to increase the manpower in the City Police so also the manpower of the escort cell will also be increased as early as possible. ” In the backdrop of the above referred statements made by the Additional Commissioner of Police, we hope and trust that in future there shall not be any delay in producing prisoners before the criminal Courts as and when their presence is required by such Courts. The inaction on the part of the Police Department to produce prisoners before the criminal Courts on the dates fixed for hearing or for other purpose results in unnecessary delay in disposal of trials and, therefore, Police Commissioner must ensure that in future no such contingency would arise. With these observations and directions, the criminal writ petition is disposed of. JUDGE JUDGE khj 4