The family of late Fr. Bismarque Dias finally received a ray of hope after the High Court of Bombay at Goa on Tuesday directed the Crime Branch to register Fr. Bismarque Dias death case as murder, under section 302 of Indian Penal Code (IPC). While dictating the judgment in open court, the division bench observed that the prosecution has failed to give reasoning about why the FIR could not be registered on the basis of the complaint filed by the victim’s family on November 7, 2015.

The High Court also observed that the investigation could have been qualitatively different if the FIR was registered as a case of murder rather than handling it as a case of unnatural death.

The observations of the Court state that the police are not justified in refusing to register an FIR.

The High Court also directed the Crime Branch to speed up the investigation and to submit a report in three months.