TURA: The alleged goof in the final report of a two-wheeler theft case led to the owner of the vehicle losing out on insurance money.
B.A Sangma, the officer in-charge of Chandmary Outpost who was investigating the case, submitted a contradictory report.
In the first paragraph, the theft of the actual bike, a Discover 100 CC (blue colour) with registration number ML-08B-4952, was mentioned only to be contradicted in the following paragraph where it stated that a thorough search had been conducted for a TVS Star Sports (red/black) bike with registration number ML-08B-7321, which could not be traced.
The bike was stolen in March 2015 from the victim’s residence at Lower Mission Compound near Leprosy Colony.
After an FIR was filed, Sangma was entrusted to look into the case as the investigating officer. What should have taken not more than six months dragged on for almost two years and the case was disposed of in the court of first class judicial magistrate N.M Sangma in February.
After the disposal of the case, the victim obtained a certified copy of the report and submitted it to the concerned insurance company in the same month. But it was rejected and returned in June citing contradictory information in the report.
He then went to meet the Prosecution Inspector at DC’s Office Tura where he was informed by another official that the mistake could not be rectified and the process would have to be started over by meeting the IO.
The goof has led to unnecessary loss of time and money to the victim who had to endure various inconveniences not to mention payments made as lawyer’s fees and others to get the long process needed to obtain the report completed, which has been all for nothing.
Interestingly, none of the officers who handled the final report could detect the error. The report also has the signature and seal of the first class Judicial Magistrate and the Officer in-charge of Tura Police Station, among others.
