Court Raps Police Over Manchanda Body Handling

GURUGRAM: A Delhi court on Saturday rebuked Gurugram police over alleged lapses in handling the body of Delhi-based real estate executive Yuvraj Singh Manchanda, questioning delayed ZIPNET uploads, cremation with belongings and gaps in postmortem procedure.

Judicial Magistrate First Class Rahul Jain questioned Sub-Inspector Chandgi Ram of Badshahpur police station over the sequence of events leading to the cremation and sought an explanation for the delay in updating the portal used by northern police forces to share information on missing persons and unidentified bodies. The court was hearing a plea by Manchanda's sister, Harsimran, seeking preservation and production of records and digital material related to his death. The court reserved its order for Monday.

Expressing dismay over what it called a shocking state of affairs, the judge asked why the nearest executive magistrate or sub-divisional magistrate was not informed on the second day after recovery for inquest proceedings of the unidentified body. Counsel submitted that a burnt watch and kada were recovered from the site. The court asked how a body could be cremated along with the belongings and whether that was normal practice.

ZIPNET, postmortem and custody status

Referring to the delay in updating ZIPNET details, the court asked how identification was to be carried out after the body had been cremated. The SI replied that the doctor who conducted the postmortem had handled the process. The petitioner's side alleged that police actions amounted to destruction of evidence. The court flagged the absence of postmortem videography and discrepancies between two postmortem reports, one mentioning bullet injuries and the other attributing the cause of death to asphyxiation due to antemortem drowning. It also noted the submission that viscera had not been preserved during the postmortem.

According to Delhi Police, Manchanda was last seen by his sisters on 6 September when he left for a meeting in Gurugram. Delhi Police have alleged that he was murdered the same night by his former colleague Anya Vats and her partner, Sanyam Sachdeva. The two have been remanded in 14-day judicial custody. Those remain allegations under investigation and trial process; Saturday's hearing focused on how Badshahpur police handled recovery, identification paperwork and the body.

For the family, the court's line of questioning goes to whether last rites and identification steps were protected before cremation. For Gurugram police, the ZIPNET delay, the inquest notice gap and the conflicting postmortem descriptions are now on the judicial record ahead of Monday's reserved order. The hearing does not decide guilt in the murder allegations. It puts procedural handling of an unidentified body under close court scrutiny.