The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday dismissed former Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini’s two petitions – one relating to anticipatory bail and the other seeking quashing of the FIR plus issuing directions to declare the subsequent investigation against him by the Punjab police in connection with the case of disappearance and murder of a man in 1991 as non est.
Justice Fathedeep Singh on September 7 reserved the verdict in both matters, which was announced on Tuesday. “The anticipatory bail petition and the other petition filed by him (Sumedh Singh Saini) for declaring the probe “non est” and in violation of a Supreme Court judgment had been dismissed by the Court,” Special Public Prosecutor advocate Sartej Singh Narula, who appeared for Punjab Police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing the case, told The Hindu.
HC judge recuses from hearing ‘missing’ ex-Punjab DGP’s bail plea
Mr. Saini, who faces arrest in the wake of no interim protection orders in the case, had absconded, leaving his security detail behind, according to Punjab police. The police had recently raided Mr. Saini’s house in Chandigarh, besides other locations, but could not find the ex-DGP. On September 1, Mr. Saini’s anticipatory bail application was dismissed by Additional District and Sessions Judge, Mohali, and it was against this order that Mr. Saini had approached the High Court.
In May, on the basis of a fresh application by the victim’s (Balwant Singh Multani) brother, Palwinder Singh Multani, the former DGP and six other accused were booked under Sections 364 (kidnapping or abduction in order to murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 344 (wrongful confinement), 330 (voluntarily causing hurt to exhort confession) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.
Later, murder charge under Section 302 was added to the FIR, after two co-accused turned approvers, and in their statement, claimed to be eyewitnesses to the torture meted out to Balwant Multani, a former Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Corporation (CITCO) employee, under the custody of Mr. Saini, who was then Senior Superintendent of Police of Chandigarh.
