A city court on Thursday dug up a two-year-old sexual harassment charge against a former Station House Officer (SHO) of Kalkaji police station who had allegedly made inappropriate advances towards a woman constable,by directing that an FIR be registered in the case. Additional Sessions Judge Rajender Kumar Shastri allowed the revision petition filed by the constable after the court of a Metropolitan Magistrate had refused to register the FIR. SHO B S Rana had allegedly sexually harassed a newly recruited constable in the police station at 1 am on January 7,2011. According to Hena Shah,the constables counsel,a complaint was filed against the SHO and three in-house inquires were conducted in the matter. Following the complaint,the constable was transferred to another police station and the SHO was censored. But FIR in this case was not registered,the counsel said. Later,the constable followed the complaint with a writ petition in the High Court. But due to a technical glitch,the matter was withdrawn and filed afresh before Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Wason. However,Wason on June 27 refused to issue directions for registration of FIR on grounds that the case lacked witnesses and allegations were not proved in the departmental inquiry. He however allowed the constable to submit pre-summoning evidence in September. Refusing to be deterred,the constable filed a revision petition in the sessions court. ASJ Shastri allowed the petition on grounds that a prima facie case of cognisable offence existed in the case and not registering the FIR was unlawful. It is very unfortunate that Delhi Police,which is responsible to investigate every crime in Delhi,is alleged to have shut its eye from the crime having committed upon their own employee. and allegedly by their officer who was duty bound to prevent crime in his area, the order mentioned. The court directed the magistrate to pass a fresh order in the case and ordered the constable to appear before the trial court on August 12.
