Zaidi gets bail in custodial death case

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, April 5

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The Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to former Himachal IGP Zahur Haidar Zaidi in the custodial death of a man accused of gang-raping a minor girl at Kotkhai in 2017. A Bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi, however, said it would deal with the issue of transferring the trial from a court in HP to Delhi at a later stage.

The top court had earlier granted interim him bail to Zaidi for a week. He had moved the Supreme Court in March last year against a state High Court order denying bail to him in the case.

He had challenged the January 19, 2018 order of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. 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. Zaidi had contended that several months had passed since his arrest and the high court had taken a very strict view.

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, 2017. The CBI has already filed the charge-sheet against the accused. A 16-year-old girl had gone missing in the Kotkhai area 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 an SIT, headed by Zaidi was constituted. The SIT arrested six people, one of whom died in the police station, following which the high court handed over the investigations of both the cases to the CBI on July 19, 2017. “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.

The apex court had in November last year sought responses from Zaidi, DSP (Theog) Manoj Joshi and six other Himachal policemen on the CBI’s plea to shift the trial against them from a court in Shimla to a Delhi court. The agency had said that Zaidi being the former IGP may influence the witnesses in the case and, moreover, other accused are also policemen.

The CBI had told the court that though the charge sheet had been filed, the trial in the case “has not seen the light of the day” and hence, the case be transferred to a Delhi court for expeditious disposal.

The SC had suggested that let the trial continue in a Shimla court and, in the meantime, it would grant bail to the former IGP and restrain him from going to HP except for attending the proceedings.

The timeline

July 4, 2017: Gudiya (name changed) goes missing in the Halaila area of Kotkhai
July 6: Her body found in Halaila forests
July 9: Police constitute SIT under IG (south) S Zahur Zaidi
July 13: The police claim breakthrough, arrest six
July 19: Suraj, one of the accused arrested by the SIT, dies in police custody
July 22: CBI takes over investigation
August 29: CBI arrests IG Zaidi, seven other cops in custodial death case
March 28, 2018: HC summons CBI director
April 14: CBI arrests ‘key suspect’ in rape and murder case