Paradip, April 24: This is a classic case of apathy of police officials. A Filipino marine engineer facing trial in a culpable homicide case had to overstay in a local jail for almost a year as the police had delayed in filing a chargesheet.

A local court in Jagatsinghpur convicted the foreigner of a criminal charge and sentenced him to a one-year jail term. However, Engraco Lopez Cacubig (junior), the foreigner, had already spent nearly nine months in jail. He had committed the offence about two years ago.

The engineer, who was set free from prison yesterday, was handed over to Philippines embassy personnel for repatriation to his home country.

“We issued a no-objection certificate to the embassy consulates for repatriation of the foreign national as required under law. Had the embassy consulates not arrived, we would have detained the convicted after his release from jail owing to his foreign national status,” said Jagatsinghpur superintendent of police Suresh Devidatta Singh.

“As desired by the convict and embassy personnel, we will move Orissa High Court against the lower court verdict. The high court would be approached for the deliberate delay on part of the local police in filing the chargesheet that had resulted in Cacubig’s overstay in jail,” said defence counsel Gorachand Singh.

The Filipino had unintentionally committed the murder of a merchant ship’s master on June 18, 2009. He had a brawl with the master in the ship’s cabin. Consequently, Antanio, the master, suffered an accidental fall as the accused marine engineer had pulled him down in a fit of rage. It was a fatal fall and the master was brought dead to the port hospital here.

The Paradip marine police had later arrested the engineer. The court was forced to convict the Filipino national due to multiplicity of flaws in police chargesheet.

The code of criminal procedure (CrPC) provision has made it mandatory on part of the investigating agency to file the chargesheet of a cognisable offence within 120 days. However, the Paradip marine police dilly-dallied and submitted the chargesheet almost six months after the registration of the case. Moreover, the case did not merit coming under culpable homicide charge. These apart, the court had faced language barrier as the foreigner spoke only in his mother tongue. The investigating agency considerably delayed in deploying an interpreter. These had led to the foreigner’s overstay in jail.

Jagatsinghpur additional district and session judge Surendra Nath Sahu sentenced him to one-year imprisonment on the ground that the murder was not premeditated. The court held him guilty under Section 323 of the Indian Penal Code (voluntarily causing hurt). The culpable homicide (not amounting to murder) charge, levelled against him by the Paradip marine police, under Section 304 IPC was, however, dropped by the local court, defence counsel Singh said.