HC verdict on Bibi Jagir Kaur''s appeal today

Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, December 4

The Punjab and Haryana High Court will on Tuesday deliver its verdict on an appeal filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation for convicting and sentencing senior Akali leader and SGPC's former chief Bibi Jagir Kaur for murder offence in her daughter Harpreet Kaur's death case.

The judgment in the case was reserved in October by the Bench of Justice A.B. Chaudhari and Justice Kuldip Singh. Bibi Jagir Kaur was convicted for abduction and forcible abortion of her daughter Harpreet Kaur. Both Bibi and the CBI have filed appeals in the case. The case was being heard by the Division Bench. 

The premier investigating agency has claimed the trial judge failed to appreciate that Harpreet's death was homicidal; and "committed a grave error in law in not giving a finding that the death was under mysterious circumstances".

In its application for early hearing of the appeal filed through CBI's special public prosecutor R.K. Handa, the investigating agency had earlier asserted that her acquittal of murder charge and for destroying evidence was not justified from the record. The matter pertains to year 2000 and must be brought to a logical end at the earliest.

The CBI has added in its appeal that Harpreet was abducted on March 18, 2000, from Chandigarh after being sedated. She was confined at her trusted friend Dalwinder Kaur Dhesi's residence Jasdil Mansion in Phagwara. Her pregnancy was terminated against her will on March 20, 2000, at Kartarpur by Dhesi, Bibi's political confidant Paramjeet Singh and approver Dr Balwinder Singh Sohal.

The CBI has claimed that the trial judge committed grave error in disbelieving Dr Sohal's testimony as far as the conspiracy to murder was concerned, while believing his witness regarding conspiracy to kidnap, wrongfully confining Harpreet and terminating the pregnancy.