Reinstated and fired, Pinki moves court

Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, May 28

Reinstated only to be fired again, a former police ‘cat’- turned-police inspector, Gurmeet Singh Pinki, today moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court against his dismissal from service.

A life-term convict in a murder case, he was released prematurely from jail last year. He 

was re-appointed head constable on May 16, following which he reportedly joined duty at Fatehgarh Sahib. But his reappointment was set aside on May 20.

In his petition placed before Justice Arun Palli, Pinki — through senior advocate Kanwaljit Singh — threw a challenge to the order dated May 20 on the grounds that it was bad in law and could not have been passed by the authorities concerned. 

The petition, however, could not make much headway as the matter was referred to another Bench. 

It will now come up for hearing after obtaining necessary orders on the new Bench from the Acting Chief Justice.

Pinki was sentenced to life in October 2006 for shooting Avtar Singh on January 7, 2001. 

But, he was “prematurely released” in the murder case, following which the victim’s father Amrik Singh had accused the State of Punjab and its police of helping the convict from the beginning.

He had claimed that the convicted Punjab Police Inspector was prematurely released after serving an actual sentence of only seven years, seven months and 14 days, whereas the minimum period for consideration and acceptance of such a plea was 10 years of actual sentence.

He had further contended that the police was initially reluctant to register an FIR against Pinki “due to his influence”. The FIR was registered only after protests were held by area residents.

After registration of the FIR, efforts were not made by the police to arrest him. “He was arrested only after the intervention of the high court. Even the investigating officer of the case made great efforts to exonerate the accused by conducting dishonest and defective investigation.” 

It was also alleged that Pinki was influencing the state government by frequently taking short-duration parole against the rules.