A resident of Rajasthan has approached the High Court of Gujarat seeking an independent investigation into the alleged rape and death of his 17-year-old daughter, who had moved to Gujarat to work as a labourer. The Court issued notice on the petition, asking the State to respond by a given date, and in the meantime ordered that the investigation be handed over to a Deputy Superintendent of Police (SDPO) at Mehsana, with direct monitoring by the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Patan district. The investigating officer was directed to submit a report to the Court within two days, and the SP was also asked to file an affidavit in the petition.
During the hearing, the State’s counsel told the Court that the government had not yet delved into the merits of the allegations, hinting at caution. To this, the Court responded that if the communication addressed to the SP did not result in FIR registration, the SP would be in direct contempt of an earlier direction by the Supreme Court, which mandates that cognizable offences must lead to filing of FIRs. This reference underscored the seriousness of the allegations and the duties imposed on police in such circumstances.
The State’s counsel explained the sequence of events as follows: the allegations being pressed before the SP were raised only after an initial investigation treated the case as one of accidental death. On the same day the complaint was made to the SP, some persons had approached the SP, and simultaneously another group had approached the police in Rajasthan. Consequently, the SP transferred the investigation from a Police Sub-Inspector (PSI) to a Police Inspector (PI). Meanwhile, the Rajasthan police registered a “zero FIR,” after which the case was transferred to Unjha in Gujarat. The FIR was registered there the next day.
Once the case came under the jurisdiction of the PI, the first step taken was to seek an order for re-inquest and conduct a forensic post-mortem of the deceased’s body. The body was sent to a forensic lab (FSL) for further examination. The State’s counsel submitted that if the forensic FSL report rules out the possibility of rape — as alleged by the petitioner — that conclusion will stand. He anticipated the FSL report would be available the next day.
The petitioner’s counsel emphasized that the victim was a 17-year-old tribal girl who had travelled from her village to Unjha for labour. It was alleged that the person who brought her to Unjha — a labour contractor — and others associated were responsible for the events leading to her death. The father’s plea was directed against the labour contractor who had arranged her transport and stay in Gujarat. The counsel argued that the girl’s mother, upon seeing the body, felt something was wrong. She questioned why, if the daughter had died of ordinary illness, the family would abruptly travel from Rajasthan to Gujarat and stay there for ten days — a behaviour claimed to be inconsistent with death by natural causes. The counsel also pointed out that the girl had traveled multiple times between Udaipur and Ahmedabad in her life, according to the family.
The father’s side argued that the body had initially been brought to the Unjha police station. The police, the petitioners claimed, had directed them to take the body to a civil hospital. According to their petition, they complied. They urged the Court not to treat the police’s version — that the hospital had summoned them — at face value and insisted that every detail of how the body was handled needed investigation. Their submission stressed that even if the father did not explicitly say something was wrong, it was the duty of the police officer to recognize the gravity of the situation and register a case. They emphasized that the burn marks on the body appeared to have been done by someone else and demanded inquiry into whether those marks corresponded with the lab’s findings.
The petition sought that the investigation not be handled by the Unjha police — due to alleged negligence — but instead be entrusted to a body independent of them and placed under monitoring by the High Court. The Court confirmed the next hearing date and the matter remains pending.
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