A murder charge under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was on Friday added against former Punjab Director General of Police (DGP), Sumedh Singh Saini, and other accused in a case of disappearance of a man in 1991.
Allowing the application moved by the Punjab police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) seeking addition of Section 302 in the case, in which Mr. Saini and six other accused have been booked for the disappearance of Balwant Singh Multani in the year 1991, Rasveen Kaur, Judicial Magistrate, S.A.S Nagar, said “... from overall perusal of the material on record, this court is of the considered view that Section 302 of IPC is ought to be added in the instant FIR No 77, dated May 6, 2020 and needed to be investigated accordingly. Thus, the application in hand is allowed.”
Fresh application
In May this year, on the basis of a fresh application by the victim’s brother, Palwinder Singh Multani, the former DGP and the 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).
Special Public Prosecutor Sartej Singh Narula told The Hindu that the application for adding Section 302 was moved by the SIT after evidence was collected.
The court observed “... a close scrutiny of the FIR and police file shows that during the course of investigation statements of co-accused-turned-approvers have been recorded. The statement of approvers Kuldeep Singh and Jagir Singh shows that all the accused were participants in the inhumane torture and systematic elimination of Balwant Singh Multani in 1991. These approvers are eyewitness of the torture committed by the accused and subsequent events in 1991.”
The court said the accused be served three days’ prior notice before the arrest. Mr. Saini is on bail in the case.
Approvers’ claim
The two co-accused-turned-approvers in their statement have claimed to be eyewitnesses to the torture meted out to Balwant Multani in 1991 under the custody of Mr. Saini, the then Senior Superintendent of Police of Chandigarh.
In his complaint, the victim’s brother Palwinder had said Balwant was picked up from his then residence in Mohali on December 11, 1991, and was taken to the police station at Sector 17 Chandigarh under the orders of the then SSP Chandigarh, Mr. Saini. Despite all efforts to secure his release, the family failed to get him back..,” said the complainant, adding that it was after Mr. Saini’s retirement that they gathered the courage to resume their efforts to fight for justice.
Earlier this week, Mr. Saini had moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking quashing of the FIR and directions to declare the subsequent investigation against him by the Punjab police in the case as “non est”. The High Court had asked the former DGP to satisfy it on the maintainability of his writ petition under Article 226, and fixed the case for August 26.
