Akali ex-MLA, IG seek case diaries; won’t give, says SIT

FARIDKOT: The court of Judicial Magistrate, First Class, (JMIC) Faridkot, on Monday witnessed forceful arguments between the public prosecutors for the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Punjab Police and defence lawyers for IG Paramraj Singh Umranangal and former Akali MLA Mantar Singh Brar over the latter’s demand for producing the case diaries of the SIT investigation into the police firing cases of Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan in the court.

A damaged police vehicle after clashes between Sikh activists and cops in Kotkapura. File photo

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, July 29

The court of Judicial Magistrate, First Class, (JMIC) Faridkot, on Monday witnessed forceful arguments between the public prosecutors for the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Punjab Police and defence lawyers for IG Paramraj Singh Umranangal and former Akali MLA Mantar Singh Brar over the latter’s demand for producing the case diaries of the SIT investigation into the police firing cases of Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan in the court.

The case diary is a record of day-by-day investigation of a case and it contain details of the time at which the information reached the investigating officer, time at which the investigation began and was closed, the place or places visited by the investigation team.

Umranangal and Mantar Brar, two of the accused, nominated by the SIT in the Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan police firing case of October 2015, are demanding the SIT to submit the case diaries of its investigation along with the chargesheet in the court. The SIT has submitted the chargesheet, without case diaries, last month.

Opposing the demand of the accused, the public prosecutor on the behalf of the SIT claimed that there were risk of leakage of the information from these diaries as the SIT’s investigation in the police firing cases was still going on.

The leakage of information from the case diaries would hamper its further investigation and also bring the persons who were assisting the SIT in the investigation under threat as the accused were highly influential persons, argued the counsels for the SIT.

However the advocates for Umranangal and Mantar Brar alleged that the SIT was violating the Punjab Police Rules by not submitting the case diaries in the court.

Until the totality of the material gathered by the SIT during its investigation, including the case diaries, was not produced before the court, it is very difficult for the accused to prepare their defence, claimed the counsels for the IG and former MLA. Moreover, the SIT is also violating the Punjab Police Rules which mandate that copies of the case diaries should be submitted to the area SHO and SSP, the defence counsels said.

However, the prosecutors claimed that as the SIT had senior IPS officers as its member, so they were not supposed to submit the case diaries to their juniors.

There were many statements of many persons in the case diaries who were examined by the police but not chosen by the prosecution during trial, so there was no reason to expose them to threats, the prosecutors said.

Besides Umranangal and Mantar Brar, two SP-rank accused police officers were also present before the court today.