Supreme Court Seeks Answers on Cremation of Missing Delhi Realtor's Body

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Delhi Police commissioner and the Gurugram police to file affidavits explaining how the body of a missing Delhi realtor was cremated without being identified.

The realtor, Yuvraj Singh Manchanda, had gone missing. His body was recovered from a drain in Gurugram by Haryana Police on September 10, but his family was informed only on September 16. The family has alleged that they were not told about the recovery and that the unidentified body was cremated on September 14.

A bench of Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and R Mahadevan also asked the Gurugram police to explain why details about the recovery of the body were not uploaded on the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) portal.

During the hearing, senior advocate Mukta Gupta, who chairs a committee constituted in relation to human trafficking, told the court that she had taken instructions regarding an incident in which a person from Delhi had gone missing. She said that three days later, the person was identified as the individual whose body had been found in Gurugram and cremated by the authorities due to lack of identification.

The matter has been listed for hearing on October 5.

Police have arrested Anya Vats and her husband Sanyam Sachdeva as accused in the case, and the investigation is ongoing.

The top court had earlier clarified that its order directing states and Union territories to immediately register FIRs in cases of missing persons applies to every person, irrespective of age or gender.

On May 22, noting that 47,000 children remain untraced in India, the court had directed police authorities across the country to immediately register FIRs in missing persons cases and said anti-human trafficking units should be made fully functional within four weeks. It had expressed displeasure over the rise in missing children cases, observing that they are often victims of organised inter-state trafficking syndicates.

The court had directed the Ministry of Home Affairs to put in place an all-India grid connecting every police station on one platform, with a special portal dedicated to human trafficking, including missing children and women. It had said concerned police stations must institute an FIR the moment any information about a missing person reaches them, without waiting for a preliminary inquiry or leaving it to the guardians of the missing person. The FIR must mandatorily incorporate relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, relating to kidnapping and trafficking.

The bench had said that whenever a child goes missing, authorities should proceed on the presumption of kidnapping or abduction from the outset, and that registering such cases under kidnapping provisions would ensure seriousness in investigation and avoid delays. It had also directed that traced children should ordinarily be handed over to their families within 24 hours, unless there are indications that the family itself was involved in trafficking or exploitation. The court had further said that the moment any person is recovered or rescued, they should be taken for Aadhaar verification or for the making of an Aadhaar card, since fingerprints and other biometrics are taken for that purpose.

Those directions were passed on a petition filed by a man named G Ganesh before the Madras High Court after his daughter went missing from Chennai on September 19, 2011.