Rajasthan high court directs police to holdback chargesheet against IndianOil officers
HC tells police to hold chargesheet in IOC fire case
Daily News & Analysis, Jaipur, August 07, 2010
The Rajasthan high court has directed the city police to holdback filing a chargesheet against the accused officials who were arrested for allegedly being responsible for the inferno at the IndianOil (IOC) terminal in Sitapura last year. The court has, however, said that the police probe into the accident can continue.
The city police had arrested nine IOC personnel, including the then general manager of the Sitapura terminal Gautam Bose, early last month. It was alleged that the negligence of these IOC personnel had led to the conflagration that killed 11 people and destroyed property worth crores of rupees on October 29, 2009.
The accused, who are currently out on bail, have moved the high court to get the FIR against them quashed. It has been argued that none of the accused was present at the accident site when the fire broke out, hence they cannot be called negligent towards duty. The accused had taken the same plea before the trial court too while seeking bails. Though there are three FIRs registered with different police stations over the fire accident, the accused have challenged the FIR filed by general manager of Genus Company, Prit Pal Singh, with the Sanganer Sadar police station.
The single bench of Justice SP Pathak has directed the public prosecutor Piyush Kumar to produce before the court the 'case diary' of police investigations in the matter. Justice Pathak has further ordered that chargesheet in the matter may not be filed without the permission of the court.
