A Rajkot court in Gujarat has asked a police inspector to pay ₹20 lakh, the value of 201.4 grams of gold that had disappeared from police custody, in a 1994 robbery case. The confiscated gold belonged to a suspect who broke into Mrudula Thakkar's Rajkot residence. Although the heist occurred in 1994, the gold was confiscated and stored at the Pradhyuman Nagar Police Station in 1998.
The gold, which was originally valued at ₹65,000 upon its recovery, was ordered to be returned to Thakkar by the court in May 2024. However, Thakkar had to appear in court once more due to the police's persistent delays.
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That was when police acknowledged that the gold was no longer with them. They conducted an internal investigation and found that one of their staff members had illegally removed the gold and retained it as personal property. Although an FIR was registered, the concerned staffer has since passed away.
Noticing the neglect, Judicial Magistrate RR Mistry adjudicated that it was the duty of the police department to maintain the safety of seized property. He also ordered that the then inspector in charge was responsible for the loss.
As the responsible staffer is dead, the court directed the then-inspector to settle the present market price of the missing gold, which is around ₹20 lakh, within a period of 60 days. The court added that in case the inspector does not settle the amount, the same would be recovered by auctioning his properties.
Apart from this, the court also levied a penalty of ₹10,000, to be recovered from the salary of the inspector and credited to the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA). The decision has raised questions regarding the age-old problem of accountability and safe custody of evidence and seized goods in police custody.
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