In a significant order, the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kathua Ajay Kumar today directed that the 11 Policemen, against whom a complaint of custodial torture has been filed, shall give written account of the situation that led to the incident alleged in the complaint.
The CJM ordered that the copy of the complaint under section 175(3) BNSS, 2023 filed by two Punjab Labourers namely Sukar Deen and Farid Mohammad be served on 11 Policemen named in the complaint through SSP Kathua and the said Policemen shall give written account of the situation that led to the incident alleged in the complaint.
The Court further directed that this reply shall be filed by all the Policemen on or before the next date of hearing i.e. August 30, 2025. The 11 police personnel are SDPO Basohli Suresh Kumar, Geetanjali (JKPS) SHO Police Station Basohli, PSI Kusum Sulakhiya, PSI Abhinav Kotwal, HC Naresh Kumar, HC Banarsee Dass , SgCT Vijay Kumar, SgCT Hemraj, SPO Surinder Kumar, SPO Sahil Singh and SPO Ajay Kumar, all posted at Police Station Basohli (Kathua).
The Court of CJM Kathua passed a detailed order as the matter had been heard at length on the last date of hearing i.e. August 18, 2025. In his 5-pages order, the CJM Kathua, Ajay Kumar observed that the counsel for the applicants Advocate S.S. Ahmed submitted that preliminary enquiry was not permissible in the instant case in the light of the judgement of the Supreme Court in case-titled Lalita Kumari V/s Govt. of U.P. and Ors. and as per the said judgement, the police had no option but to register FIR in the case since the allegations contained in the application disclosed commission of cognizable offences. Adv. S.S. Ahmed had also relied upon the recent judgment of the Apex Court in case-titled Khursheed Ahmad Chouhan V/s UT of J&K and Others.
The CJM further observed in the order that APP Kathua Ankush Gupta raised a legal objection that without complying with provisions of subsection (4) of section 175 BNSS, the Court cannot pass any order of investigation against the police personnel named in para 22 of the application and in support of his submission, the APP Kathua relied upon two judgements.
The CJM after discussing the legal position and the judgements cited by both the sides observed that “In my opinion, the expression “a complaint against a public servant arising in course of the discharge of his official duties” in Section 175 (4) BNSS is equally wide an expression, if not wider, as the expression used in section 218 BNSS viz. “any offence alleged to have been committed by him while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duty”.”
With these observations and directions , the Chief Judicial Magistrate Kathua, Ajay Kumar directed that the copy of the complaint under section 175(3) BNSS, 2023 filed by two Punjab Labourers namely Sukar Deen and Farid Mohammad, be served on 11 Policemen named in para 22 of the complaint through SSP Kathua and the said 11 Policemen shall give written account of the situation that led to the incident alleged in the complaint.