Kotkhai case: Denied bail, Zaidi moves SC

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 23

Former Inspector General of Police (IGP) Zahur Haidar Zaidi on Friday moved the Supreme Court against a state High Court order denying him bail in a case relating to the custodial death of a man accused of gang-raping a minor school girl in Kotkhai last year.

Acting on a Special Leave Petition filed by Zaidi against the January 19 order of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra issued a notice to the CBI.

Justice Sandeep Sharma of the High Court had dismissed Zaidi’s bail plea, saying it would not be appropriate to release him on bail at this stage. The alleged crime too was of serious nature and a detailed investigation was required in the case, it had noted. On Friday, senior counsel Salman Khurshid submitted before the CJI’s Bench that several months had passed since Zaidi’s arrest and the High Court had taken a very strict view in the order under challenge.

Zaidi and seven others were arrested in the custodial death case of Suraj, who was found dead in the Kotkhai police station on July 18. The CBI has already filed the chargesheet against the accused. A 16-year-old girl had gone missing in the Kotkhai on July 4 and her body was found from the Halaila forests on July 6.

The post-mortem report confirmed rape and murder and a case was registered, and amid huge public outcry a SIT, headed by Zaidi, was constituted. The SIT arrested six persons, one of whom died in the police station, following which the High Court handed over the investigations of both cases to the CBI on July 19.

“Custodial death is a heinous crime, and the person involved in crime how highly placed he may be, needs to be dealt with severely. As such, present being a case of custodial death, same needs to be viewed more seriously than a murder case. Hon’ble Apex Court in a catena of judgments especially has termed ‘custodial deaths to be worst kind of crime in a civil society governed by rule of law,” the High Court had noted.

Judicial custody of cops extended

The special CBI court on Friday extended the judicial custody of nine police officials, arrested in the custodial death of one of the accused in the rape and murder of the Kotkhai minor girl, till March 27. The CBI informed the court that the voice samples of all accused would be taken on April 11, 12 and 13.