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Farmer Suicide: DM Asks Delhi Police To Furnish Case Documents By 11 AM Or Face Action

Farmer Suicide: DM Asks Delhi Police To Furnish Case Documents By 11 AM Or Face Action
Delhi Congress workers hold candles during a candle light vigil for the suicide of an Indian farmer, in New Delhi on April 23, 2015. An India farmer hanged himself in front of hundreds of protesters gathered in the centre of the Indian capital on April 22, 2015, to rally against the government's contentious reform of land purchasing laws. AFP PHOTO/MONEY SHARMA (Photo credit should read MONEY SHARMA/AFP/Getty Images)
MONEY SHARMA via Getty Images
Delhi Congress workers hold candles during a candle light vigil for the suicide of an Indian farmer, in New Delhi on April 23, 2015. An India farmer hanged himself in front of hundreds of protesters gathered in the centre of the Indian capital on April 22, 2015, to rally against the government's contentious reform of land purchasing laws. AFP PHOTO/MONEY SHARMA (Photo credit should read MONEY SHARMA/AFP/Getty Images)

NEW DELHI — The Delhi government and the city police are engaged in a battle over the issue of statutory powers of a District Magistrate who has been asked to probe the suicide by a farmer at a rally organised by the ruling Aam Aadmi Party.

Delhi Police had written to the District Magistrate, New Delhi district, who has been asked to conduct a magisterial enquiry by the city government that it has no jurisdiction in the matter as it was a subject matter of an FIR filed under various sections of IPC including abetment to suicide.

The District Magistrate contested police's argument that he has no jurisdiction to probe the matter saying he has statutory power to enquire such cases.

DM Sanjay Kumar wrote a letter to Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) Vijay Singh asking the police to furnish all documents and evidences regarding the incident by 11 AM tomorrow failing which it would be deemed a criminal offence as per law.

"As per Section 174(1) and Section 176(1) Criminal Procedure Code, a DM has power to probe such matter. Even in previous cases, magisterial enquiry had been conducted. In a suicide case on February 24 this year, police had also provided all information to district magistrate, but why police is now saying that DM has no jurisdiction in this case," a senior Delhi government official said.

As per Section 122 of Delhi Police Act, punishment is also prescribed if the desired information is not provided.

The investigation in the case has handed over to the Crime Branch whose team has been sent to Nangal Jhamarwada village in Dausa, Rajasthan to do a background check about Singh and gather information about the circumstances which brought him to Delhi.

Investigators are also checking his mobile phone call records to identify the people with whom he was in touch with after coming to Delhi. They also visited the site of the incident and will be speaking to the people who had tried to save him.

"He was using a Rajasthan number and we have requested the service provider for his call record details. We are also awaiting the postmortem report to determine whether he died of hanging or because of the 20-25 feet fall.

"We would also check the videos of the incident to piece together the sequence of events," said a senior police official associated with the probe.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.