The Allahabad High Court has directed the Uttar Pradesh government to explain why its police force failed to use the honorifics “Honourable” and “Mr” before the name of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP and former Union Minister Anurag Thakur in a first information report (FIR) filed last December in Mathura district.
The court described the lapse as a “breach of protocol.”
A division bench, while hearing a petition arising from the case, directed the Additional Chief Secretary of the Home Department to file an affidavit addressing the omission, asking why the Union Minister “has not been described with the usual honorific of Hon’ble, and at one point, referred to just by his name without even appending a ‘Mr.'”
Why Anurag Thakur’s name is in the case
The FIR at the centre of the matter was filed by one Khajan Singh against Harshit Sharma, the main petitioner, who is accused of collecting Rs 80 lakh from Singh, his relatives and friends on the false promise of securing government jobs, while leveraging his alleged proximity to Anurag Thakur.
According to the FIR, Singh claimed that when Sharma failed to deliver on his promises, he personally took him to meet Thakur in Delhi, who reprimanded Sharma for misusing his name without having any acquaintance with him. The Union Minister had him detained by officers of the South Extension Police Station.
Sharma was subsequently released after he assured Singh he would return the money and handed over a Toyota Fortuner SUV as surety.
Singh further alleged that Sharma later enlisted local criminals, named as Rahul Sharma and Chintu Chaudhary, to recover the vehicle. On December 17, the two allegedly attempted to steal the SUV from outside Singh’s home but were apprehended and handed to the police. Singh claimed both were released without any action being taken against them.
Police has responsibility to correct mistake: HC
The High Court, while conceding that the complainant himself may have named Thakur without the appropriate title in his written complaint, held that the responsibility to correct the record lay squarely with law enforcement.
“Even if in the written report, the Hon’ble Minister was inappropriately described by the first informant, while writing the check FIR, it was the duty of the Police to have abided by the protocol by inserting the honorific, maybe in brackets,” the bench observed.
The court also asked the Additional Government Advocate to ascertain and inform it of the registered ownership of the Fortuner SUV currently in the complainant’s possession.
The matter has been listed for next hearing on April 6.
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