A Delhi court on Saturday grilled Gurugram Police over the handling and cremation of real estate sales professional Yuvraj Singh Manchanda’s body, questioning why basic legal procedures were not followed and observing that the lapses deprived his family of their “rights to perform his last rites”.
The court was hearing a plea by Manchanda’s sister, Harsimran, through senior advocate Amit Prasad, seeking preservation and production of records and digital material related to his death. “Isn’t it the norm to inform the nearest executive magistrate of the Sub-divisional magistrate on the second day from recovery itself regarding inquest proceedings for the unidentified body? Why wasn’t it carried out,” the court asked the Gurugram police officer present during the proceedings. The court further questioned the failure to upload details of the unidentified body on ZIPNET, the police network used by Delhi, Haryana and other northern states to share information on missing persons and unidentified bodies. “Do you not upload details of an unidentified body on ZIPNET in cases of murder or otherwise? Isn’t that the procedure followed by Gurugram Police?” the judge asked. How can such basic procedures be skipped?” the court asked.
The court also flagged the absence of postmortem videography and discrepancies between two postmortem reports, one mentioning bullet injuries and the other attributing the cause of death to asphyxiation due to antemortem drowning. “The postmortem reports are different, one mentions bullet injuries and the other asphyxiation due to antemortemn drowning.
The court reserved its order on the application and said it would consider the sister’s apprehensions raised in the plea. Prasad alleged that the police actions amounted to destruction of evidence and were intended to “save the culprits”, arguing that the court had the ancillary powers to issue directions over the handling of the deceased’s body. The court had on Thursday observed that the Gurugram Police had “botched up” the case and carried out a “complete hotch potch” in handling Manchanda’s body.
The judge rebuked the officer from Gurugram’s Badshahpur police station who was present in court, observing that he had “no concrete response” to the questions. “The complainant not only lost her brother by cremating his (Manchanda’s) body, you snatched away he family’s right to dutifully carry out his last rites,” the court remarked.
