“We expect the investigation to be done fairly and impartially even if the police are involved and if it is not done, we will be constrained to pass orders. Don’t take it that we are suspecting but we are doing it because we want truth,” it said.

It sought to know if the deceased knew how to open the pistol, to which public prosecutor Hiten Venegaonkar on behalf of the state government submitted that as it was not locked, the deceased tried to pull the upper portion and the magazine came out.

Justice Chavan, citing his experience in the field, questioned, “This is very hard to believe. Have you fired a pistol anytime? It requires strength… A lay man cannot fire pistol unless he is trained. It requires strength. Weak man cannot pull the slider back. There is a lanyard strip attached to the pistol, was it there or not? Whether there was lane yard to the pistol? Why was it not there? Why it was not locked? What is SOP? What are the guidelines?

It also said that sealing of the crime scene at the very spot is very essential to avoid all further complications and speculations. “Time is of essence in any investigation. Delay will lead to suspicion among public.”

The father of the deceased has also sought registration of a First Information Report (FIR) against the police officers concerned and preserve the CCTV footage of Taloja prison, from where the accused was escorted, and shops and streets from where police officers picked him till the incident and also those at Chhatrapati Shivaji Hospital in Kalwa (Thane district).

He claimed that the ‘fake encounter’ was done keeping in view of the upcoming elections as it would work in favor of the ruling party.

He mentioned that the cognizance of a complaint filed by his father against the police officers was not taken.

The state government informed the bench that the investigation was transferred to the state Crime Investigation Department (CID) and the investigation papers were forwarded to the agency on Wednesday morning. However, the bench noted that none from CID was present during the hearing.

The government also submitted that hand wash of gunshot residue of the deceased was taken to the JJ Hospital and is being examined and the vehicle in which the police officers and the deceased traveled was seized along with the bullets and sent for further examination.

The court, while passing slew of directions related to collection of evidence, also directed the Call Data Records (CDRs) of four police officers and driver present in the vehicle of September 23 and 24 be collected along with the CCTV of visitors area where parents of the deceased interacted with him in jail prior to the incident.

The bench referred to the timeline of events submitted by the state government through Venegaonkar. The deceased and injured police officer were taken to the nearest Kalwa hospital and at 7.52 pm on September 23, the doctors declared the accused to be dead.

Responding to the court’s query, the state submitted that the weapon used by the deceased was an old pistol and the officer who fired at him was in a civilian dress and the gun was tucked in the left side of the waist.

The court chided the police for being “negligent and careless”. “And was he handcuffed?” Venegaonkar responded that the deceased was initially handcuffed but as he asked for a glass of water, one of the handcuffs was removed.

“He (deceased) fired three bullets and only one bullet hit the officer in his thigh? Where are two bullets? Whether ricochet injury was there to policeman or was it is direct fire? It seems there are four empty shells. Three fired by him and one by officer. Ordinarily you would fire on the leg. How you fired on temple or head of the deceased? The object was to disarm him. There were four of your officers trained and one of the officers was in the past involved in encounters. So four of the trained police officers could not overpower him who is not trained in operating firearms? Police are trained we understand if lay persons did it. It could have been avoided,” Justice Chavan added, to which the state lawyer said, “it was an immediate reaction.”

The judge said that as per postmortem report, the bullet appeared to be fired by the police inspector from point blank range with 9 mm browning pistol.

“… First you had to try to disarm him. What were you doing until he fired three bullets? He is not a heavy tall man. You could have overpowered him… This can’t be termed as an encounter. Definition of encounter is different,” the bench remarked.

Posing queries to the state government and seeking details of the probe, the bench said, “We are looking at the matter from all angles. We make it clear that we want to know the truth and we are not remotely suspecting activities by police, but they have to come clean.”

The state lawyer also said that the high rank police official will communicate with local authorities to make arrangements for burial of the deceased.

The court posted the next hearing to October 3.