From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: An appeal of former Union Minister and senior BJP leader Syed Shahnawaz Hussain’s appeal against Delhi High Court’s orders to register an FIR against him in a 2018 rape case is listed on Monday before a Bench of Chief Justice-designate Uday Umesh Lalit and Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhula as case number 1 in the Supplementary list.
This is an example of the quick listing of the VVIP cases as Hussain filed his criminal case only on August 18 and it was put on the board within four days. He came in appeal a day after the High Court directed Delhi Police to register the First Information Report (FIR) and complete the investigation within three months.
Hussain rushed to the top court a day after the High Court’s single-judge Bench of Justice Asha Menon passed the order, with scathing remarks on why Police did not act on the complaint of a victim woman for all these years. She noted a complete reluctance on the part of the police to even register an FIR as at best it could have conducted a preliminary inquiry.
Justice Menon said the woman’s complaint to the Police Commissioner was received at Mehrauli police station on June 20, 2018, but the SHO of the police station did nothing, not even after a city magistrate accepted a cognizable offence and ordered the registration of the FIR against Hussain on the complaint by a Delhi-based woman on June 21, 2018.
Hussain challenged the magistrate’s order before a sessions court, which dismissed his plea, holding that the Criminal Amendment Act of 2013 had made it mandatory for the Police to record the statement of the victim in cases punishable under Section 376 (rape) under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
