Minor Kidnapping Case: Delhi Court Upholds Charges Against Gujarat Police Officers

A Delhi court has rejected a criminal revision petition filed by four Gujarat Police officers accused of taking a minor boy from Delhi to Ahmedabad while searching for his father in 2008. Additional Sessions Judge Parveen Singh said the officers were responsible for locating the wanted accused and had no authority to take his child into custody and transport him across state borders. The court strongly criticised the alleged conduct, saying police officers could not use the child as leverage to force his father to surrender.

The case originated from a complaint filed by the boy's mother, who alleged that five or six Gujarat Police officers in plain clothes arrived at her scrap shop in Delhi on May 25, 2008. According to the complaint, the officers were looking for her husband, who was wanted in a criminal case, but instead allegedly took their minor son from her lawful custody and transported him to Gujarat. The prosecution alleged that the child was subsequently confined, abused and beaten during the journey.

The court also referred to the boy's statement recorded before a magistrate, which allegedly indicated that he was kept in a police lock-up and subjected to torture. The four policemen argued that they were carrying out their official duties while searching for an absconding accused and therefore could not be prosecuted without prior government sanction. They sought protection under the legal provisions applicable to acts performed by public servants in connection with their official responsibilities.

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Rejecting the argument, the court said official-duty protection cannot cover an act that has no reasonable connection with the duties being performed. Justice Parveen Singh observed that taking the minor from his mother's custody and transporting him to Ahmedabad to locate his father could not reasonably be considered part of the officers' official responsibilities. The court said the officers' duty was to search for the accused father rather than use the child as a means of pressuring him to surrender.

The court also found that the revision petition contained what it described as "completely incorrect facts". The officers had claimed that the trial court took cognisance of the case only in 2026, but court records showed that cognisance had actually been taken in 2010. The Delhi court therefore dismissed the revision petition and upheld the trial court's decision to take cognisance and frame charges against the policemen under provisions relating to kidnapping.

The ruling keeps the criminal proceedings against the four Gujarat Police officers intact. The court's observations underline that police powers exercised while pursuing an accused person cannot extend to taking custody of family members who are not themselves wanted in the case. The matter now continues at the trial stage, with the charges relating to the alleged kidnapping of the minor remaining in place.

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