The Bombay High Court on Monday asked the Maharashtra government to make its submission by February 6 on the actions it plans to take on a magisterial inquiry into the custodial death of a man accused of sexually abusing two minor girls in Badlapur, reported India Today.

On January 20, a Thane magistrate told the High Court that five police officers were found responsible for the custodial death of Akshay Shinde, who allegedly sexually abused the minors on August 12 on the premises of their school. Shinde used to work as a janitor at the school.

Four days after the abuse, one of the children reported the incident to her parents who approached the police. Shinde was arrested on August 17.

On September 23, Shinde died while he was being taken from Taloja Jail in Navi Mumbai to the Crime Branch office in Thane in connection with a separate case of sexual assault filed by his second wife in 2022.

The magisterial inquiry into the killing found that the police could have “easily handled the situation”.

Following this, a High Court bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Neela Kedar Gokhale directed the Maharashtra government to register a first information report against the personnel and start further legal proceedings.

"What happened to the magistrate's enquiry report?" the court asked.

It added: “You [state government] will have to make a statement what you intend to do on the basis of the report.”

The Bombay High Court was hearing a petition filed by Shinde’s father, Anna Shinde, who moved the court seeking an investigation by a Special Investigation Team into his son’s death.

After Shinde’s killing, the police claimed that he snatched a police weapon and fired at security personnel while in transit. He injured a police officer and was shot dead in retaliatory fire, the authorities had said.

However, the magisterial inquiry into Shinde’s killing found that his fingerprints were not present on the pistol he allegedly snatched and that there was no gunshot residue on his body. This suggested that the “use of force was not justified”, the inquiry report stated.

The officers named in the report were senior police inspector Sanjay Shinde, assistant police inspector Nilesh More, head constables Abhijeet More and Harish Tawade and constable Satish Ramnath Khatal who was driving the vehicle.

Four of the five police officials have filed an intervention application seeking that the findings of the inquiry report be made available to them, The Indian Express reported.