1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH : NAGPUR CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO.147 OF 2011 (Sou. Lata Pundlikrao Yadwar vs. The State of Maharashtra and others) __________________________________________________________________ Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. Shri A.R. Prasad, Advocate for the petitioner. Shri N.W. Sambre, Public Prosecutor for the respondents. --------- CORAM : P.V. HARDAS AND S.B. DESHMUKH, JJ. DATED : SEPTEMBER 8, 2011 This is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India by the unfortunate mother of Bhushan, who has been missing since 23/4/2010. By this petition, the petitioner prays for handing over the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation and to direct the Central Bureau of Investigation to produce the son of the petitioner, namely, Bhushan within a stipulated period. It appears that son of the petitioner, aged 23 years, was missing since 23/4/2010. The 2 petitioner accordingly reported this fact to the concerned Police Station on 29/4/2010. Pursuant to the report lodged by the petitioner, offence vide Crime No. 117/2010 came to be registered under Section 363 of the Indian Penal Code. Since the report did not name any particular accused, the offence came to be registered against unknown persons. It also appears that the petitioner thereafter had filed a criminal writ petition in this Court, namely, Criminal Writ Petition No.357/2010 praying therein for issuance of a writ of habeas corpus against the Police to produce her son. The Division Bench found that relief of issuance of a writ of habeas corpus would not be available to the petitioner and, therefore, by issuing the writ of certiorari directed the Investigating Officer to investigate the said crime. The Division Bench also directed the Deputy Commissioner of Police to supervise the investigation. Pursuant to the notice issued by this Court, the respondents have filed their affidavit-in- reply. In the affidavit-in-reply filed on behalf of the respondents, it is stated that the respondents have not 3 closed the investigation and are still pursuing the investigation to trace the whereabouts of the missing person. It is further urged before us that the Police Officers explored all possibilities relating to disappearance of Bhushan. According to the affidavit-in-reply, Bhushan voluntarily has gone somewhere and has not been abducted. In any event, this is only a possibility, which is expressed in the affidavit-in-reply. Suffice it to state that the investigation/enquiry/efforts for tracing the whereabouts of the missing person are continuing and have not flagged so far. The learned Counsel for the petitioner has urged before us that the investigation has been extremely protracted and is lackadaisical in the manner. We have perused the affidavit-in-reply and we do not subscribe to the view expressed by the learned Counsel for the petitioner that the investigation has been protracted or that it is lackadaisical or without direction. The Police are doing their utmost for tracing the whereabouts of Bhushan. We also understand the feelings expressed 4 by the petitioner whose son, aged 23 years, is missing for the last more than one and half years. According to us, no case has been made out for transfer of the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation nor it can be said that the transfer is necessitated on account of any fault in the investigation. However, we direct the respondents to continue the investigation with the same zeal and enthusiasm with which they had commenced the investigation. We are quite confident that the concerned Police Station under the supervision of the Deputy Commissioner of Police would continue with the investigation and ensure that whereabouts of Bhushan are traced as early as possible. The fear expressed by the petitioner in respect of the investigation, according to us, can be allayed by directing the Police to ensure that there is no let up in the investigation or efforts for tracing the whereabouts of Bhushan. It appears that the petitioner had expressed apprehension that one Umar Sahab Abbas, who had enticed her son Bhusan to part with huge amount under the promise of employment may be a 5 person, who may be responsible for disappearance of Bhushan. The grievance of the petitioner is that the Police have not made any efforts for joining Umar Sahab Abbas as an accused. The learned Public Prosecutor, upon perusal of the case diary, states that though initially offence had been registered against unknown persons, now the offence of abduction has been registered against Umar Sahab Abbas. In the light of the registration of the offence against Umar Sahab Abbas, we feel that it would be appropriate to direct the Police Officers to continue with the search and trace the whereabouts of the son of the petitioner. We accordingly dismiss the petition with directions referred to above. JUDGE JUDGE khj