NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Tuesday questioned how a body recovered as unidentified could be cremated before police had completed basic identification procedures, observing “clear negligence and a failure to follow the Standard Operating Procedures established for such cases” by Badshahpur Police, Gurgaon.The court directed the DCP Gurgaon to file a report within two weeks on the lapses and summoned the doctor who conducted the post-mortem to explain discrepancies in his report.Saying the role of the police officials and doctor in disposing of the body while flouting norms to cause disappearance of evidence “cannot be ruled out” and directed investigation under Section 238 BNS.Criticising the cremation that effectively ended the family’s opportunity to identify the body and perform the last rites, judicial magistrate Rahul Jain noted that Yuvraj Singh Manchanda’s body was recovered on September 10 at 4.05pm, but its details and photographs were uploaded on ZIPNET only on September 16, two days after it had been cremated.The court said, “In this case, there was a delay of six crucial days in uploading this data. This delay not only affected evidence preservation but also denied the family their right to perform the last rites of the deceased. The complainant not only lost her brother to allegedly a brutal murder but could not even see or cremate his body due to the lapses of the Gurugram Police.”The court also pointed out that the body’s details were uploaded under “Unidentified Person Found” instead of the required “Unidentified Dead Body” category.It explained that ZIPNET allows police to circulate details of unidentified bodies across police units and match them with missing-person reports.Although the body was kept in a mortuary for 72 hours “on paper”, the court said the failure to upload its details during that period made the exercise meaningless.The court further flagged the failure to inform the Executive Magistrate as required under Section 194 BNSS and questioned the inquest, noting that police had relied on a “local property dealer’s claim” that the deceased had drowned without properly examining suspicious circumstances or preserving the site.The court also found serious deficiencies in the post-mortem., noting no videography or photography was conducted on September 14 and described the report as “grossly deficient and incomplete”.While disclosure by two accused in Delhi Police investigation indicated Yuvraj had been shot twice near the neck, as submitted by advocates Amit Prasad, Neharika Kushwah and Rajat Jain, the report recorded “NIL” external injuries, “No Abnormality Detected” in several internal structures and concluded that death was due to ante-mortem drowning.The court observed how none of the forensic samples were preserved to help the investigation, adding “It is worthwhile to note that the doctor only preserved a blood sample on gauze for DNA testing. In cases of advanced decomposition or questionable drowning, the doctor was required to preserve viscera for chemical analysis to check for poisoning and femur bone or sternum for diatom testing( which helps in identifying the cause as post mortem drowning or ante mortem drowning).”The DCP Gurgaon was directed to report within two weeks on the delayed ZIPNET entry, failure to conduct post-mortem videography and failure to inform the executive magistrate, while Dr Manav Chauhan, medical officer who conducted the post mortem, was summoned to personally appear with a written explanation on October 15.The directions came on Harsimran’s plea seeking preservation and production of records relating to the recovery, identification and cremation of her brother’s body.Yuvraj, 31, was allegedly murdered on September 6 by former colleague Anya Vats and her partner Sanyam Sachdeva, according to the Delhi Police investigation.A missing-person report had been registered at Lajpat Nagar Police Station on September 11.
