The Bombay High Court has thrown out a show-cause notice issued to the investigating officer in the Palghar hospital assault case, and in doing so, asked a question that goes well beyond one case diary: can ignoring the Director General of Police's own circulars really be treated as a minor lapse?

A bench of Justices Ajey Gadkari and Kamal Khata was hearing an update on the probe into the alleged assault on doctors at a Palghar hospital on September 6. The Palghar Superintendent of Police had issued a show-cause notice to the then investigating officer over how the case diary was maintained, and had proposed withholding three of his increments as punishment.

The bench wasn't having it. It pointed out that the court itself had directed the case papers be placed before the DGP, and questioned why the SP had moved to propose a punishment before the DGP had even examined the lapse. "If you are unable to respect your DGP, then..." the court observed, leaving the sentence hanging but the point unmissed.

The judges went further, calling the disciplinary action "just an eyewash." Amicus curiae Ashok Mundargi reminded the bench that the court's own order required the case diary to reach the DGP by September 18, with the DGP then deciding what action, if any, the officer deserved. The show-cause notice, the bench noted, didn't even reference that order or the DGP's 2024 circular on how case diaries are supposed to be kept.

This isn't a one-off complaint from the bench either. The court flagged what it called repeated instances of sloppily maintained case diaries across cases, despite the DGP's circular having been issued specifically to fix this, and specifically because the High Court asked for it two years ago.

On the assault itself, Public Prosecutor Shishir Hirey told the court several accused have already been arrested, some identified through CCTV footage from the hospital. A handful remain unidentified, and a test identification parade is still pending. The CCTV footage has gone to the forensic laboratory for analysis. Hirey also confirmed, in response to a court query, that no case has been registered against the doctors under the SC ST Act.

The investigation itself is now being supervised by the Special Inspector General of Police for the Konkan Range, after the High Court earlier expressed displeasure at how slowly things were moving.

What happens next rests with the DGP. The court has asked for a detailed report on the case diary lapse, and on whether defying his own directions amounts to minor or serious misconduct, by the next hearing on October 12. Until then, the officer whose increments were on the line gets to keep them.