MUMBAI, Jan. 22 -- The Bombay High Court has quashed a first information report (FIR) against a retired army officer, Captain Baliram Bhaskarrao Shinde, for allegedly assaulting a mentally ill man who intruded into his house in Pune in 2020, leading to his death a few hours later. The FIR, registered 44 days after the incident, was "totally false, concocted and a dishonest and malafide afterthought", aimed at covering the inaction and negligence of police authorities, the division bench of justices AS Gadkari and Shyam Chandak said on December 24, while quashing the FIR against Shinde. The 73-year-old retired army officer had moved the court in 2021, seeking quashing of the FIR registered at the Chandan Nagar police station in Pune on October 4, 2020. According to the court order, the incident occurred in the early hours of August 20, 2020, when Ramkishan Devidas Surwase tried to forcefully enter Shinde's house. When the retired officer tried to fend him off using a bamboo stick, he became aggressive, climbed up the sofa in the verandah, and broke the kitchen window. Hearing the commotion, Shinde's neighbours gathered outside his house, nabbed Surwase, and assaulted him. Since it was found that Surwase was undergoing treatment at a psychiatric hospital in Latur, Shinde decided not to lodge a complaint against him. Personnel from the Chandan Nagar police station subsequently took Surwase to Hadapsar to put him on a bus to Latur. But when he started vomiting on the way, they abandoned him on the Mundhwa bridge. Surwase's body was found in a deep well the next morning. The Chandan Nagar police inferred that he had succumbed to injuries allegedly inflicted by Shinde and registered an FIR against him for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The bench of justices AS Gadkari and Shyam Chandak, however, noted that he had "rightly acted in self-defense" and "his response and reaction was proportionate and measured". The police authorities, in order to cover up their mishandling of the case, had registered the FIR 44 days later, the court observed. "It is a clear case of misuse of the rights and powers vested in the investigating authorities by filing untenable and false prosecutions against law-abiding innocent citizens," the court said....