Supreme Court Issues Notice On Plea Questioning Delhi Police's Cremation Of Man As 'Unidentified' Despite Pending Missing Complaint

The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Delhi Police on a writ petition seeking effective measures, including mandatory biometric identification methods, for ensuring intimation of unidentified dead bodies to their family members before cremation/burial.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh heard the matter,

Briefly put, the petitioner, a retired army officer, filed the petition alleging that his nephew, who was reported as missing at Vasant Kunj Police Station, Delhi on 14.10.2024, was cremated as an unidentified person by police officials of the adjacent IGI Airport police station on 17.10.2024 without taking necessary efforts to identify him.

As per contentions, the deceased nephew hailed from Kerala and went missing after coming to Delhi. Pursuant to a complaint lodged in Kerala, his call data records revealed that his location was near Vasant Kunj. As such, a missing complaint along with the deceased's Aadhaar Card and photograph were filed at Vasant Kunj Police Station.

Subsequently, the family members of the deceased learnt that he was found lying on a service road near IGI Airport, was taken to a hospital and declared 'brought dead', after which police officials cremated his body at an Electrified Crematorium recording that his identity could not be established despite best efforts.

The petitioner asserts that the police officials of IGI Airport police station did not take even bare minimal efforts to trace the family members of the deceased.

"In this era where Aadhar based Biometrics is even used for obtaining new sim card, the Police Officials have miserably failed by not utilizing biometric identification methods, inspite of submitting the Aadhar card details of the deceased."

The petition refers to Delhi Police Standing Order No.252/2019 dated 28.06.2019 and Zonal Integrated Police Network (ZIPNet), to state that they were introduced to deal with cases of missing persons and unidentified dead bodies. However, the two have proved to be purposeless due to their limited scope and lack of proper implementation.

"Since Kerala is not using Zipnet, the scope of identifying the deceased was further limited. [Only 8 States are presently using Zipnet]."

It is averred that the police officials' negligence and lack of coordination rendered the deceased's family members unable to perform his last rites as per their faith. As such, the erring officials violated fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 21 (right to life and liberty), 14 (right to equality), 19(1)(a) (freedom of speech and expression) and 25 (freedom of religion) of the Constitution.

"It is evident that the existing framework for addressing missing and unidentified persons is limited, and that police officials from both stations have been blatantly negligent, even disregarded the existing framework."

The reliefs sought also include (i) inquiry into the negligence of police officials for failing to trace and inform the family about the deceased, despite filing of a missing person's complaint much prior to the cremation, and (ii) compensation for dependents of the deceased, who suffered loss due to the police officials' negligence.

The petition has been filed through AoR Jose Abraham.

Case Title: CHACKO KARIMBIL v. UNION OF INDIA, W.P.(C) No. 255/2025