After former Punjab Director General of Police Sumedh Singh Saini moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking quashing of an FIR and directions to declare the subsequent investigation against him by the Punjab police in a case relating to disappearance of a man in year 1991 as “non est,” the court on Wednesday asked Mr. Saini to satisfy it on maintainability of his writ petition under Article 226.
Special Public Prosecutor Sartej Singh Narula, representing the Punjab police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing the case, told The Hindu that the petition was listed before Justice Manoj Bajaj. “We objected to it on the ground that the petition was not maintainable when alternative remedy of filing petition under Section 482 Cr.PC was available. So, without issuing notice or giving any interim relief, the matter has been posted for August 26, requiring Mr. Saini’s counsel to satisfy the court on the maintainability of petition under Article 226,” he said.
Mr. Saini contended that the FIR was in violation of the Supreme Court’s December 7, 2011 directive while quashing the earlier FIR dated July 2, 2008 registered by the CBI in the same matter.
Terror attack
The Punjab police had on May 6 booked Mr. Saini among others in connection with a case related to disappearance of Balwant Singh Multani, following a terrorist attack in Chandigarh in the year 1991. The case was filed on the basis of a fresh application by the victim’s brother, Palwinder Singh Multani. Based on Mr. Palwinder Multani’s complaint, the case was registered 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) in Mohali.
Pardon plea
Separately, a local court in Mohali on Tuesday accepted the application of the prosecution to grant pardon to two former Chandigarh police officials, who are co-accused in the case, allowing them to become approvers.
Mr. Narula said Chief Judicial Magistrate Deepika Singh accepted the application after recording the statements of former Inspector Jagir Singh and Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Kuldeep Singh. “Now their statements as approvers are to be recorded under Section 164 Cr.PC before the jurisdictional Magistrate on August 20. The SIT had submitted applications on behalf of three accused, after which the court declared two out of the three as approvers,” he said. The application for the third accused, former Sub-Inspector Harsahai Sharma, was rejected.
The court observed that “... the facts of the FIR clearly reveal that the heinous offence is alleged to have been committed by several persons about 29 years ago in the four walls of the police station and as such, there was no independent witness to such custodial death as most of the officials involved in the crime were police officials and are accused in the present FIR. The complainant was silent for so many years and has got the present FIR registered after much delay, due to which the investigating agency is not able to trace the direct evidence, but that fact has to be seen by the competent court at the relevant time.”
“However, the investigating agency is trying to link the evidence against the main accused and for that purpose, they require the disclosure to be made by one or the other accused and accordingly, prayed for tendering of pardon to three accused, namely Harsahai Sharma, Jagir Singh and Kuldeep Singh, so that the investigating agency may get the information regarding the manner in which the offence was allegedly committed by the main accused. As such, this court is of the opinion that there is need to grant pardon to one or the other accused as the request of the investigating agency seems to be genuine,” it added.
Notably, the two co-accused turned approvers in their statement have claimed to be eyewitnesses to the torture meted out to Multani under the custody of Mr. Saini, the then Senior Superintendent of Police of Union Territory Chandigarh.
