The on Thursday asked why a first information report could not be registered after a magisterial inquiry showed that five police officers were responsible for the death of a man accused of sexually abusing two minor girls in Badlapur, PTI reported.

A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Neela Gokhale reserved its order on whether a case ought to be filed by the state government in the matter.

The man, Akshay Shinde, allegedly the minors on August 12 on the premises of their school, where he worked as a janitor. Four days later, one of the children reported the incident to her parents who approached the police. Shinde was arrested on August 17.

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

The police claimed that Shinde and fired at security personnel while in transit. He injured a police officer and was shot dead in retaliatory fire, the authorities had said.

Provisions of the law mandate a judicial probe into cases of custodial death.

On January 20, a Thane magistrate told the High Court that five police officers...