The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has declined to grant police custody of tainted IPS officer Manilal Patidar for interrogation in a corruption case on technical grounds.

“Though the special judge of Prevention of Corruption Act court, Lucknow, committed an error in not granting police custody for interrogation, it cannot grant the police custody at this stage because the section 167(2) of CrPC puts embargo on granting police custody after 15 days of judicial custody period, which expired on November 13,” the bench said.

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The bench of Justice B.R. Singh passed the order on the revision petition filed by the state government, which had challenged the order of November 9, whereby the special court had rejected the plea of police to grant custody of Patidar for interrogation.

In its order, the court, however, permitted the state government to take any other legal recourse which is available to it under law to meet the ends of justice.

After having been on the run for over two years, Patidar had surrendered ion October 15.

The 2014-batch IPS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, Patidar, as the Mahoba SP, was in news when a viral video was uploaded by stone crusher dealer Indrakant Tripathi on September 8, 2020, in which, Tripathi claimed a threat to his life and alleged that Patidar sought bribe from him.

Hours later, Tripathi was shot in the neck while he was returning home.

He was later taken to a district hospital from where doctors referred him to a hospital in Kanpur, where he died.