PANJIM: Goa Police has informed the High Court of Bombay at Goa that officers and personnel below the rank of Superintendent of Police are barred from interacting with the media on the cases pending investigation.
The department, citing its old circular, has made his submission in response to a suo motu petition on the disclosure of the identity of a mother, who is charged with abandoning her newborn.
During the hearing on Friday, the Division Bench of Justices Mahesh Sonak and Nutan Sardessai has expressed its disappointment on the non-compliance of the circular and asked the Director General of Police Pranab Nanda to submit before it deadline on its compliance, by September 20.
The Bench had last week taken suo-motu cognizance of a news article that appeared in a vernacular daily along with the photograph of the accused mother with the police team.
The matter was pertaining to the arrest of a couple who allegedly abandoned their newborn third child at Mapusa.
“The news item reports that the couple has been arrested and the investigations are being carried out in the incident. We do not propose to make any observation with regard to the arrest as well as the investigation. The law may take its own course, in these matters. However, what we are concerned with is the photograph in the news item in which, the police officials, are posing along with the mother, as if the police officials, are displaying some trophy,” the Bench had observed.
“The photograph conjures image of some maharaja/hunters posing with their trophy after a hunt. At least prima facie, such action on the part of the police officials, who are seen in the picture, may amount to human right violation of the mother in the picture.”
