While Cuttack city police have approached a lower court here seeking to lodge both Dhalsamant brothers in two separate jails for security reasons, the brothers have moved the Orissa High Court seeking a direction to the police to tag both the murder cases registered against them at the Chauliaganj police station here and treat it as one single case. Both the courts have not taken cognisance of the respective petitions.
In a criminal miscellaneous case, the brothers Sushant and Sushil through their advocate have told the High Court that the police in a forwarding report to a magisterial court on January 29 have admitted that the alleged abduction of the two victims, assault on them to cause death, transportation of the bodies and disposing them at one location occurred on the same date, time and place.
The alleged incident occurred in November 2013 but the city police registered the case on January 18, 2016 following a complaint case filed by father of one of the victims that was forwarded to Inspector-in-charge of Chauliaganj police station by the court. While this case was under investigation, the widow of the other victim filed a written complaint on February 9 on the same allegation and a second FIR was registered.
Quoting a Supreme Court judgment, the brothers in their petition have stated that the law is well settled, if for same occurrence an FIR has been registered earlier, the second FIR should not be registered for the same cause of action. “In event of registration of a second FIR, the same should be quashed as per the judicial pronouncement of the apex court passed in a Gujarat case in the year 2010,” the petition said.
In the meantime, the brothers, who are now on judicial custody, were produced before the SDJM Court here on Wednesday in connection with four other cases slapped against them by the Commissionerate Police after their arrest on January 29 as required under Section 167 of CrPC.