The Rajasthan Police acknowledged procedural lapses in the arrest of two alleged minors from Delhi and told the Delhi High Court on Wednesday that it has initiated an inquiry against the erring officials. The submission came a day after the Delhi High Court pulled up the Rajasthan Police for arresting the purported minors without following the protocol or guidelines laid down for making interstate arrests, such as informing the local police. The Rajasthan police initiated the departmental inquiry through an order on September 30. Ajmer Superintendent of Police Vandita Rana informed a division bench of Justices Jyoti Singh and Anish Dayal that the inquiry report shall be rendered on or before October 8, and assured the court on Wednesday that “the matter will be handled with responsibility and sensitivity, considering the background of the case”. The court has directed that the Rajasthan Police file an updated status report by the next date of hearing scheduled on October 8. The court also directed the Delhi Police—through the Hari Nagar police station, the area where the two alleged minors were apprehended from—to place on record CCTV footage of the detention on a pen drive along with still photographs from the relevant part of the footage, in a sealed cover. The Delhi High Court was hearing a habeas corpus petition by Kapoori Bai, a street hawker selling toys in Janakpuri, Delhi, seeking that her sons, aged 15 and 17 years, respectively, be produced. She alleged that they were illegally and forcibly taken away by unknown persons dressed in civilian clothes on September 26. The Rajasthan Police, however, has claimed that the two are 19 years old and were arrested on September 29 in relation to an FIR at Pushkar in Rajasthan in August for the offences of theft and trespass. A link to a 2024 custodial death Kapoori Bai’s counsel had told the Delhi High Court that the purported minors were apprehended in response to a September 26 Supreme Court order on the probe into the custodial death of Deva Pardhi, a 25-year-old man from a denotified tribe, in July 2024, as Kapoori was Deva’s relative. The Supreme Court had expressed its doubts on the cause of Deva’s death and had slammed the state police for “shielding” its officers. In May, the Supreme Court had transferred the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) after recording that the Madhya Pradesh Police “influenced the investigation right from the beginning”. While transferring the probe, the Supreme Court had directed CBI to arrest the police officers found responsible for the custodial death within a month and to complete the probe “within a period of 90 days from the date of the arrest of the accused”. On September 25, the Supreme Court had pulled up the CBI and warned it for “aggravated contempt” for failing to arrest the police officials who were purportedly absconding, and on September 26, the apex court gave the CBI time until October 8 to make arrests. Notably, one of the absconding officials surrendered and was arrested on September 26.
