Police officers must shed communal colours when they put on their uniforms: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court, in a judgment on Thursday (September 11, 2025), warned against communal colours seeping into the khaki of the police while issuing an unprecedented order that a Special Investigation Team (SIT), comprising equal numbers of Muslim and Hindu officers, be formed by the Maharashtra government to investigate allegations of murder and assault made by a 17-year-old Muslim boy during the Akola communal riots of 2023.

“When members of the police force don their uniforms, they are required to shed their personal predilections and biases, be they religious, racial, casteist or otherwise. They must be true to the call of duty attached to their office and their uniform with absolute and total integrity. Unfortunately, in the case on hand, this did not happen,” Justice Sanjay Kumar observed in the ruling, issued by a Bench which also included Justice Satish Chandra Sharma.

Witness to murder

The case concerned the complaints made by a teenager, Mohammad Afzal Mohammad Sharif, who allegedly witnessed four men — including one who was later identified to have political connections — fatally attacking a man in an autorickshaw during the May 2023 riots. The men assaulted the boy, leaving him with head injuries.

Afzal and his father then went to the police station to file a complaint about the murder he witnessed and the assault on himself, but the police took no notice. A subsequent appeal to the Superintendent of the Police (SP) of Akola also came to no avail.

The murder victim was identified as Vilas Mahadevrao Gaikwad, who had been plying an autorickshaw owned by a Muslim. Afzal had stated that Gaikwad was killed under the mistaken impression that he was a Muslim.

Police negligence

“It was for the police to investigate the truth or otherwise of the specific allegations made by the appellant, a 17-year-old boy, who asserted that he was an eyewitness to the murder of Vilas Mahadevrao Gaikwad and was himself assaulted by the very same assailants… If, in fact, the deceased was really murdered under the impression that he belonged to Muslim community and the assailants were not of that community, that was a fact that had to be ascertained after thorough and proper investigation,” Justice Kumar pointed out.

The court took a stern view of the Akola SP’s failure to act on Afzal’s complaint, observing that “this conduct on the part of a superior police officer of no less a rank than a Superintendent of Police is indeed a cause for great concern”.

“Law requires, nay, ordains that its sentinels be vigilant, prompt and objective in enforcing and securing its mandate. To what extent the guardians of the law, viz., the police, discharge this task without bias and subjectivity is the question that arises in the case on hand,” the court noted.

SIT probe

It directed the Maharashtra Home Secretary to constitute an SIT comprising senior police officers of “both Hindu and Muslim communities, to undertake an investigation into all the allegations made by the appellant, by registering an FIR in connection with the assault upon him on May 13, 2023, and take appropriate action thereon as warranted”. The court ordered the placing on record of the SIT probe report in three months.

The State Home Secretary was also directed to initiate appropriate disciplinary action against erring police officials for their “patent dereliction of duties”.