PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Monday initiated a suo motu contempt proceedings against some police officers for posing with accused persons and violating the court order issued four years back.
Advocate General Devidas Pangam said, ”The High Court has taken suo motu contempt proceedings against the police officers who pose themselves with the accused and take photographs which are published in the newspapers. In fact, there are High Court directives wherein in 2019 it had completely banned publication of these types of photographs showing the police officers and the accused standing and posing. Despite this it appears that several photographs are published in the newspapers.”
”The recent one is of a woman who had abandoned her child somewhere at Borda, Fatorda, last week. The Court, I think, has taken cognisance of it. The High Court has now issued notices to certain police officers who were actually involved in these photographs and who are seen posing with the accused. They will have to face the contempt process,” the Advocate General said.
The Court has issued notices to six police personnel of Fatorda police station, while, the Court Registry is learnt to have found as many as 70 instances of police officials posing in front of the media with arrested persons.
In November 2019, the High Court at Goa had fined two police personnel for parading an accused woman and posing with her before the media and barred such practice in future.
The State government and the Director General of Police (DGP) were also directed to ensure that the order is implemented. The DGP had also issued a circular to all the police stations asking them not to pose for photographs and publish them in newspapers.
In September 2019, the police had paraded a couple before the media after their arrest from Mapusa allegedly for abandoning their newborn male child.
The Court has issued contempt proceedings against six police personnel of Fatorda police station for posing with a woman, who was arrested for allegedly abandoning her one-and-a-half-month-old child in a garbage pile near St Joaquim Road, at Borda, Margao, on March 27.
